Antoine Vitez

Antoine Vitez
René Kalisky with Antoine Vitez (right)
Born	20 December 1930 Paris, France
Died	30 April 1990 Paris
Nationality	French
Education	National Conservatory of Dramatic Art, Paris
Known for	Theatre director, stage director

Antoine Vitez (20 December 1930 – 30 April 1990) was a French actor, director, and poet. He became a central character and influence on the French theater in the post-war period, especially in the technique of teaching drama. He was also translator of Chekhov, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Mikhail Sholokhov.

Antoine Vitez was born in Paris and trained to be an actor, finding his first acting job at the age of 19 in Ils attendent Lefty at the Théâtre Maubel. He left the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Paris in 1950 without graduating and became a Communist activist, which he continued until 1979, when he left the Communist Party following the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR. He met Louis Aragon in 1958 and became his private secretary from 1960 to 1962. He worked in the theater Balachova Tania, and wrote reviews published by Jean Vilar in the magazine Théâtre populaire. Vitez also found work reading on the radio and voice-dubbing in films. He had his first opportunity as director with Sophocles' Electra at the Maison de la Culture de Caen in 1966.

Vitez' production of Electra was successful and he continued directing with Russian and Greek repertoire, directing Mayakovsky's Les Bains in 1967, Eugene Schwartz's Le Dragon in 1968, and Chekhov's La Mouette in 1970. After this initial period, he began working more with French and German repertoire, directing works by Racine, Jakob Lenz, Goethe and Brecht. He later expanded his work to both traditional and classical theatrical repertoire, including Sophocles, Shakespeare, Molière, Marivaux, Paul Claudel, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Pierre Guyotat, Jean Metellus and Jean Audureau.