Having traveled often to Paris between 2001-06, Park Krausen, the artistic director of the Théâtre du Rêve, was acutely sensitive to the political sloganeering taking place on both sides of the Atlantic in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The Théâtre du Rêve is a small francophone theater company based surprisingly in Atlanta, where it has survived for nearly a decade due to a small staff of determined American actors who love French language.

Its mission has been to bring French language and culture to life on the American stage and to promote exchanges between American artists and the French-speaking world.

The theater has enthralled fairly limited local audiences with performances based on interpretations of the works of Eugène Ionesco, Jean de La Fontaine, Molière and Jean-Paul Sartre among others.

But it was French newspaper Le Monde’s editorial titled “Nous Sommes Tous Américains (We Are All Americans)” in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York that launched an intensely personal examination of French-American relations at Théâtre du Rêve.

The company commissioned a new work by Belgian playwright Olivier Coyette “to unveil myths and misunderstandings and disagreements” between Americans and francophone Europeans, according to fund-raising literature.

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Written in French for American actors, the play, titled “Voir Un Ami Pleurer (See a Friend Cry),” delves into cross-cultural relations, examining how the “wealth and success” of their countries affects the rest of the world, Ms. Krausen told GlobalAtlanta in an interview.

In Paris, Ms. Krausen witnessed protests in the streets with crowds carrying placards saying “Bush de là!”, a play on words demanding that the U.S. president order the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. 

Upon her return to Atlanta, she saw similar signs of discontent: U.S. placards calling for boycotts of French products.

She said that the sloganeering and “sound bites” called out for a meaningful dialogue, a key ingredient for powerful theater that was not present in the ongoing political wrangling.

The announcement of the three-year agreement between the Musée du Louvre and the High Museum of Art in the midst of this maelstrom provided a timely dose of fuel to further fire the actors’ ambitions.

“We were excited by this celebration and recognition of French culture,” Ms. Krausen said.  The company immediately pushed for a role for the dramatic arts to accompany the outpouring of visual arts that the High was about to experience.

The High responded positively, and the actors devised their own scripts to complement the works of art. They also put on daily performances to educate local students about the art and its history.

Ms. Krausen recalled that opening day turned out to be a celebration of the arts and Atlanta.  Attendees included French people living in the area, representatives of the consulate, members of the Alliance Française d’Atlanta and curious members of the public.

“There was a sense of how wonderful that this kind of thing could take place in Midtown,” she added.

Her theater group was hired to perform in the High’s Hill Auditorium for students ranging in age from 4-year-olds to high school teenagers.

The numbers could be as few as 70 for a session to sometimes as many as 400.  Attendees would ask questions about the dramatic sketches of the lives of Napoleon Bonaparte and Louis XIV.

She said that they also were intrigued about how French royalty lived, France’s support of the arts or even what the climate is like in France.

During these sessions, Ms. Krausen recalled her own early memories of her first exposure to the theater. “Theater changes the way you see the world and (allows you) to be safe to feel and to question in front of art.”

Her student audiences, she said, were beginning “to think and process information on a different level.”