The Festival d'Anjou is one of the oldest theatre festivals in France, founded in 1950, and its organising idea is the venue: productions are staged in the courtyards of Loire châteaux, in abbey ruins and cloisters across the Maine-et-Loire, a different setting each night. The repertoire is mainstream French theatre — classics and contemporary pieces with named casts — rather than experimental work.
Angers itself is the base, but most performances happen in villages within an hour of it, which is the festival's charm and its logistical catch.
No attendance figure is published.
Because each production travels to a different site, a visitor planning more than one evening needs a car; rural public transport in the Maine-et-Loire does not run to curtain-down. Performances are outdoors and the wet-weather fallback varies by venue, so the ticket terms are worth reading in a region where June evenings can be cold.
PlanningA month-long window in June, with each production in a different historic site.