Élissa
Alloula

Élissa Alloula made her debut on stage as part of her training at the Vélo Volé school, by interpreting Fanchette in The Mariage of Figaro (Le Mariage de Figaro) at the Lucernaire theatre. In 2011, following the Center of Paris Municipal Conservatory, she enrolled at the École du Théâtre national de Strasbourg run by Julie Brochen. There, she worked with directors such as Gildas Milin (the Dicklit writing collective); Claudio Tolcachir (Romeo and Juliet); Sacha Todorov (Cromwell); Cécile Garcia-Fogel (Bérénice) and with the tg STAN (three works by Büchner). Vincent Thépaut, who graduated from the same class, directed her on stage at the Venice Open Stage festival in Heiner Müller’s Gundling’s Life in 2013 and later in Jean Genet’s Elle in 2014. At the same time, Élissa Alloula obtained a two-year master’s degree in theater studies at the Paris X University. Her final thesis was dedicated to the analysis of contemporary theater in Algeria, a topic she chose in memory of her uncle, the playwright Abdelkader Alloula who was killed because of his work.

In 2015, Jean-Yves Ruf entrusted her with the role of Irina in his production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters which toured in France and Switzerland. In 2015 and 2016, she played Scapin and Zerbinette in Scapin the Schemer (Les Fourberies de Scapin) which toured with the performing arts group Les Fous Masqués. As part of the Art des Nations’ association run by Patrick Sommier, Élissa Alloula played extracts from Wang Renjie in China, directed by David Lescot and Jean-René Lemoine. In 2016, Charles Tordjman directed her in Le Monologue du nous by Bernard Noël. At the Nouveau Théâtre Populaire festival in Maine-et-Loire the following year, she played Élissa in La Fleur au fusil written and directed by Clovis Fouin; Clémentine in Feydeau’s La Dame de chez Maxim by Frédéric Jessua; and several roles in Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo by Émilien Diard-Detoeuf. In 2018, she went on tour with the Birgit Ensemble diptych, Memories of Sarajevo and Dans les ruines d’Athènes. In January 2019, Margaux Eskenazi and Alice Carré offered her a role in which she interpreted the life of her own father in J’ai la douceur du peuple, effrayante, au fond du crâne, subsequently entitled Et le cœur fume encore, a performance exploring the memories of the war in Algeria.

Lilo Baur and Jean-Yves Ruf directed her in Daniil Harms’ En se couchant, il a raté son lit. In various schools, she played in the Kateb Variation, based on Kateb Yacine’s story, an Algerian poet who used the French language as a weapon in the struggle for decolonisation.

Élissa Alloula became a pensionnaire of the Comédie-Française on the 1st of September 2019, reprising the role of Angélique during the tour of the Imaginary Invalid (Malade imaginaire) directed by Claude Stratz.

In the 2019-2020 season, she performs in Forums, by playwrights Patrick Goujon, Hélène Grémillon, Maël Piriou staged by Jeanne Herry in the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier and in the reruns of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid and Scapin the Schemer (Fourberies de Scapin).