Frédéric Maurin, President of the Pôle

Frédéric Maurin is a member of the Conseil économique social et environnemental de la région Centre – Val de Loire (CESER), as a qualified person. He chairs the Mouffetard – Centre national de la marionnette in Paris and the Pôle international de la marionnette – Jacques Félix in Charleville-Mézières.

Self-taught by training, Frédéric Maurin began his professional life in industry, then in popular and sports education. It was in the summer of 1980 that he first encountered the theater and director Pierre Orma, a seminal step in his acting career. He then took classes at the Atelier – École Charles Dullin, in order to enter the acting profession head-on, which he pursued until 2004.

In 1995, he collaborated in the creation of several shows by Roland Shön, author, director and puppeteer: he discovered the art of puppetry, which he would never leave. In 2003, after more than twenty years of touring and creating, he decided to take a course at the GRETA des Arts appliqués de l’école Boulle, where he obtained a master’s degree in the administration and production of live shows.

In 2004, after accompanying the creation of L’Hectare, then a public service delegate for the town of Vendôme, he took over its management until 2023. In 2012, he transformed the Théâtre de Ville project into a Scène conventionnée pour les arts de la piste et de la marionnette (Conventional stage for puppetry and circus arts), and then, in 2015, into a Scène conventionnée et pôle régional des arts de la marionnette et du théâtre d’objet (regional center for puppetry and object theater). In 2013, he created “Avec ou sans Fils”, an international biennial for puppetry in the Centre Val de Loire region, now supported by L’Hectare -Territoire Vendômois – Centre national de la marionnette.

Since 1999, he has also been founder and artistic advisor of L’Échalier, an artistic workshop located in a rural setting in Saint-Agil, Loir-et-Cher.

Frédéric Maurin has always campaigned for the recognition of puppetry as a discipline in its own right. It was driven by this activism that he co-founded the Latitude Marionnette network in 2013, which he will chair until 2022. In 2021, Roselyne Bachelot, then Minister of Culture, entrusted him with a mission of support and foresight for the Institut International de la Marionnette. The conclusions of his report recommended the creation of the Pôle International de la Marionnette – Jacques Félix, which came into being in 2024.

After contributing to the drafting of the professional reference framework for the diplôme national supérieur professionnel de comédien (DNSPC), option acteur-rice marionnettiste, he actively participated, alongside the Direction générale de la création artistique du ministère de la culture (DGCA), in the reflection and creation of the label “Centre national de la marionnette”. His militant commitment was also reflected in his presidency, from 2019 to 2023, of the Syndicat national des scènes publiques (SNSP).