Editing Jean Anouilh (section)

==Theatre work==
At the age of 25, Anouilh found work as a secretary to the French actor and director [[Louis Jouvet]] at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées. Though Anouilh's boss had happily lent him some of the set furniture left over from the production of [[Jean Giraudoux]]'s  play ''Siegfried'' to furnish his modest home, the director was not interested in encouraging his assistant's attempts at playwriting.<ref name="Falb"/> Jouvet had risen to fame in the early 1930s through his collaborations with the playwright Giraudoux, and together the two worked to shift focus from the authorial voice of the director (which had dominated the French stage since the early twentieth century) back to the playwright and his text.

Giraudoux was an inspiration to Anouilh and, with the encouragement of the acclaimed playwright, he began writing again in 1929. Before the end of the year he made his theatrical debut with ''Humulus le muet'', a collaborative project with [[Jean Aurenche]]. It was followed by his first solo projects, ''L'Hermine'' (''The Ermine'') in 1932 and ''Mandarine'' in 1933, both produced by [[Aurélien Lugné-Poe]], an innovative actor and stage manager who was then head of the [[Théâtre de l'Œuvre]].<ref name="Levi"/> Ruled by the philosophy, "the word creates the decor," Lugné-Poe let Anouilh's lyrical prose shine in front of a backdrop of simple compositions of line and color that created a unity of style and mood.<ref name="Brockett442"/>

The plays were not great successes, closing after 37 and 13 performances respectively, but Anouilh persevered, following it up with a string of productions, most notably ''Y'avait un prisonnier'' (1935). These works, most in collaboration with the experimental Russian director [[Georges Pitoëff]], were considered promising despite their lack of commercial profits, and the duo continued to work together until they had their first major success in 1937 with ''[[Le voyageur sans bagage]]'' (''Traveller Without Luggage''). In subsequent years, there was rarely a season in Paris that did not prominently feature a new Anouilh play and many of these were also being exported to England and America.<ref name="Pronko"/> After 1938, however, much of Anouilh's later work was directed by the prominent Paris scenic designer [[André Barsacq]], who had taken over as director of the [[Théâtre de l'Atelier]] after [[Charles Dullin]]'s retirement in 1940.  Barsacq was a champion for Anouilh and their affiliation was a major factor in the playwright's continued success after the war.<ref name="Brockett458485"/>