In 2009 David Geselson founded Compagnie Lieux-Dits. Lieux-Dits is primarily concerned with the creation of contemporary texts and experimental works for the theatre. The junction between fiction and non-fiction is at the heart of its work. The tension between the power of politics to intimately affect and transform individuals, and the way in which they can then transform history in their turn, is a common thread in its productions. At the centre of its vision, is a powerful dynamic between a writer and a team of actors focused on creating texts and works for the theatre that tackle current political, philosophical and poetic issues.

Compagnie Lieux-Dits is accredited by the ministère de la Culture – DRAC île-de-France and the Val-de-Marne department as part of its development aid.

Compagnie Lieux-Dits I David Geselson is associated to the Théâtre-Sénart, scène nationale – direction Caroline Simpson Smith.

Compagnie Lieux-Dits is member of ARVIVA, whose mission is to examine the everyday practices of the performing arts professions in order to identify sustainable alternatives to reduce the sector’s environmental impact, looking at all the links in the chain, from artistic creation to communication and from production to touring.

Read the Lieux-Dits company’s eco-responsible charter.

David Geselson is an actor, playwright, and director.

Trained at École du Théâtre National de Chaillot’s, École de Théâtre Les Enfants Terribles and the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique, he founded his theater company, Lieux-Dits, in 2009.

There, he builds a dialectic between an author and a team of performers to craft a body of work and create a theater practice in tune with the political, philosophical, and poetic questions of today’s world.

He wrote, directed, and performed in Neandertal (2023)—premiered at the 77th Avignon Festival— Lettres non-écrites [Unwritten-Letters] (2017), Doreen (2016)—winner of the 2017 Best French-Language Production Award from the Syndicat de la Critique—based on André Gorz’s Letter to D., and En Route-Kaddish (2014). He also wrote and directed Silence and fear [Le silence et la peur] (2020).

During the 2024–2025 season, he restaged Doreen with a Taiwanese team at the National Theater and Concert Hall (NTCH) in Taipei. He is currently working on his next production, Archives [working title], scheduled to premiere in the spring of 2027.

David Geselson directed Thibault Vinçon’s Eli Eli, Juan Mayorga’s Les Insomniaques, and Pauline Peyrade’s Poings at the Teatro Español in Madrid. In December 2025, invited by the Opéra de Nancy, he directed his first opera, La Bohème, a revival of which is scheduled for the Grange Festival (UK) in the summer of 2026.

Through the Lieux-Dits company, he is actively involved in raising awareness, fostering discussion, and developing tools to facilitate the transition toward sustainable and eco-friendly live performance. The company coordinated the carbon footprint assessment of artistic teams, a study commissioned by the Ministry of Culture—DGCA, and published in October 2025 Durables: Toward Sustainability for Performing Arts Teams, a guide to action. In parallel with the guide’s development, this led in March 2024 to David Geselson’s restaging of A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction, based on a proposal by Katie Michell, at the MC93.

With the company, David Geselson founded Éditions Lieux-Dits, which publishes the texts of his performances and notebooks documenting his creations.

He also published Lettres non-écrites with Le Tripode in March 2021—winner of the 2022 Debut Novel Revelation Prize from the Société des Gens de Lettres—an expanded version of which was released in paperback on February 5, 2026.

He performed under the direction of Brigitte Jaques in La Marmite (Plautus’ Aulularia), Cécile Garcia-Fogel in Foi, Amour, Espérance (Odön Von Horváth’s Faith, Love and Charity), Gilles Cohen in Théâtre à la campagne by David Lescot, David Girondin-Moab and Muriel Trembleau in Le Golem (a stage adaptation of Gustav Meyrink), Christophe Rauck in Le Revizor (Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector), Gabriel Dufay in La Ville (Yevgeni Grishkovetz), Jean-Pierre Vincent in Meeting Massera by Jean-Charles Massera, Volodia Serre in Les Trois Soeurs (Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters), Juliette Navis and Raphaèle Bouchard in a collective work entitled Mont-Royal, and Jean-Paul Wenzel in Tout un homme.

He worked also for television and cinema, for example with Elie Wajeman in Alyah and Les Anarchistes (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs – Cannes 2012 and Semaine de la critique – Cannes 2015 ), François Ozon in Grâce à Dieu, Isabelle Czajka in La Vie domestique, Olivier de Plas in QI, Rodolphe Tissot in Ainsi-soit-il (seasons 2 and 3), Vincent Garanq in l’Enquête, as well as in short films directed by Muriel Cravatte, Antonin Peretjatko, Marie Donnio and Etienne Labroue.