L’Alliance New York announces The New York Premiere of The Big Sleep as part of the 2025 Crossing The Line Festival
Company:
L'Alliance New York
L’Alliance New York is proud to announce the New York premiere of The Big Sleep (Le Grand Sommeil) as part of the 2025 Crossing The Line Festival on Wednesday, September 17, 2025 at 7:30 PM. The performance takes place at Le Skyroom, L'Alliance New York, 22 East 60th Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY, 10022 and is presented in collaboration with the 14th edition of Seuls en Scène, Princeton French Theater Festival. Tickets start at $15. For more information and to reserve tickets, visit https://lallianceny.org/event/the-big-sleep/.
“With The Big Sleep, written and directed by Marion Siéfert, actress Helena de Laurens has won big. A golden score!” — Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde
Back at L’Alliance New York after her acclaimed Crossing The Line 2022 debut, _jeanne_dark_, Marion Siéfert brings another ferocious performance to this year’s festival. Collaborating once again with actress Helena de Laurens, Siéfert crafts a wild investigation into the fantasies and norms of adolescence and womanhood, challenging de Laurens to embody the tortures, triumphs and terrors of teenage girlhood.
Performers
Marion Siéfert is a writer, director, and performer. Her work lies at the intersection of several artistic disciplines and takes shape through various mediums: theatre, film, and writing. In 2015-2016, as part of her doctoral research, she was invited to the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen, Germany. There, she developed her first piece, 2 or 3 Things I Know About You, a portrait of the audience through their Facebook profiles. She collaborated on Nocturnes and L’Époque, two films by director Matthieu Bareyre, who also works as artistic collaborator on her stage productions. Together, they now co-write her shows as well as a forthcoming feature film. From 2017 to 2023, she was an associate artist at La Commune, Centre Dramatique National in Aubervilliers. In 2018, she created The Big Sleep (Le Grand Sommeil), in collaboration with choreographer and performer Helena de Laurens, presented at the 2018 edition of the Festival d’Automne in Paris. In March 2019, she premiered Current Piece No. 12: DU SALE!, a duet for rapper Original Laeti and dancer Janice Bieleu. This production was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Fast Forward European Festival. Her next piece, _jeanne_dark_, premiered at the 2020 Festival d’Automne in Paris. It was the first show conceived simultaneously for the stage and for Instagram, and received the Digital Prize from the French Critics’ Syndicate for Theatre, Music and Dance, with a special mention. Her most recent piece, Daddy, co-written with Matthieu Bareyre, premiered at the CNDC in Angers and at the Odéon–Théâtre de l’Europe. Since 2024, she has been an associate artist at T2G – Centre Dramatique National de Gennevilliers and Points Communs – Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise.
Helena de Laurens is an artist, actress and dancer. She was born in 1988 and lives in Paris. Her work explores the grotesque, the grimace and metamorphosis. She wrote a thesis on Valeska Gert as part of her studies at EHESS. She has performed in nightclubs, museums, gardens and bookshops. She regularly collaborates with Esmé Planchon, Clara Pacotte and Sophie Bonnet-Pourpet. As a performer and choreographer, she has performed in two solos written and directed by Marion Siéfert: Le Grand Sommeil in 2018 and _jeanne_dark_ in 2020. In 2022 she starred alongside Emmanuelle Lafon and Frédéric Leidgens in Copi’s L’Homosexuel ou la difficulté de s’exprimer, directed by Thibaud Croisy.
Billing credits:
Concept, direction and text: Marion Siéfert
Choreography: Helena de Laurens, Marion Siéfert
Artistic Collaboration and Performance: Helena de Laurens
Set Design and Assistant Director: Marine Brosse
Lighting Design: Marie-Sol Kim and Juliette Romens
Sound Design: Johannes Van Bebber
Costume Design: Valentine Solé
Production manager – Ziferte Productions: Anne Pollock
Production credits:
Production: Ziferte Productions
Co-producer: La Commune – Centre Dramatique National d’Aubervilliers
Touring and Administration: Ziferte Productions, Anne Pollock
With the support of:
DRAC Île-de-France, with additional support from Studio Naxos (Frankfurt), Théâtre NanterreAmandiers, La Ménagerie de Verre as part of the Studiolab program, Le Centquatre-Paris as part of a technical residency, the CND (Centre National de la Danse) – studio residency, La Briqueterie – CDCN Val-de-Marne, Kulturamt Frankfurt, Hessische Theaterakademie, Kulturamt Gießen, Gießener Hochschule Gesellschaft, AStA of Justus Liebig University Gießen, Université Paris Nanterre, the Franco-German Youth Office (OFAJ/DFJW), and the Municipality of Chevaline
Support for Crossing The Line Festival
Howard Gilman Foundation, Air France, and The Wescustogo Foundation. L'Alliance New York's programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the Support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
