Playwright, author, and actress, Pauline Bayle has been the director of the Théâtre Public de Montreuil since January 1, 2022.
A graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique, she founded her company in 2011, naming it after her first play, À Tire-d’aile.
Driven by an insatiable belief in fiction, Pauline Bayle brings major literary works to the stage, such as Homer's Iliad (2015) and Odyssey (2017). In 2018, the Syndicat de la Critique awarded her the Jean-Jacques Lerrant prize for theatrical revelation for this diptych. Concurrently, in 2019, she directed an adaptation of Leïla Slimani's novel Chanson douce at the Studio-Théâtre de la Comédie-Française. In 2020, she adapted Balzac's Illusions perdues (Grand Prix du Syndicat de la Critique in 2022), which was revived at the TPM in May 2024.
Throughout her various productions, Pauline Bayle champions creations that are both demanding and accessible, requiring no prior knowledge from the audience. She continues her exploration of coming-of-age narratives by drawing from Virginia Woolf's work with Écrire sa vie, a show created in June 2023 at the CDN de Béthune and then at the Festival d’Avignon the same year, before being revived at the TPM and on tour. In parallel, she leads the "Adolescence et Territoire(s)" project, supported by the Odéon, Théâtre de l'Europe, the T2G in Gennevilliers, and Espace 1789 in Saint-Ouen. Throughout the 2021–2022 season, she worked with about twenty young people, creating with them an adaptation of Aeschylus's The Suppliants. Inspired by this experience, upon her arrival at the TPM, Pauline Bayle launched a similar mentorship program with a group of young people, the Adelphes, who are integrated into the theater's life each year and mentored by artists from the season for a performance.
She has also worked in opera, directing Monteverdi's L’Orfeo in June 2021 at the Opéra-Comique, under the musical direction of Jordi Savall. In March 2025, she stages Giorgio Battistelli's 7 minuti at the Opéra de Lyon, under the direction of Miguel Pérez Iñesta.
In 2023, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, appointed Pauline Bayle a Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2024, she received the "Prix Culture et Égalité en Île-de-France," which annually recognizes a woman committed to parity in the cultural sector on International Women's Day.
In 2024, she co-wrote Victor Rodenbach's first feature film, Le Beau rôle, in which she also acts alongside Vimala Pons, William Lebghil, and Jérémie Laheurte. In September 2026, Pauline Bayle will create her next show at the TPM, an adaptation of the great Hindu epic, The Mahabharata.