Jean-Pierre Martinez - Biography
Jean-Pierre Martinez is a French playwright of Spanish descent whose career followed unconventional paths. He has a solid academic foundation, with degrees in economy and marketing (Sciences Po), Spanish and English literature (Sorbonne), linguistics and semiology (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), and script writing (Conservatoire European d’Ecriture Audiovisuelle). He also played drums in various rock bands, worked as an advertising semiologist for some of the biggest consulting companies, wrote television scripts, taught French in a Texas university, gave screenwriting classes in Paris, and he is now a playwright whose plays are produced on the five continents.
A fierce advocate for the absolute independence of playwrights from institutions claiming to define what modern theatre should be, he decided to make all his plays directly available to theatre companies on his website, in more than ten languages. In that way, he was able to achieve international recognition in just a few years, even reaching, to his great pride, young emerging performing troupes and countries where theatre is a vector for change. His plays are performed all over the world and are studied in lower and upper secondary schools and universities in France and abroad.
Taking his distances from the positions (and sometimes impositions) of what many modern theatre professionals pompously call the “new contemporary dramaturgies”, Jean-Pierre Martinez actively champions popular theatre (in the first meaning of the word), entertaining but not mindless, cheeky but never vulgar, activist but not pontificating, ethics-minded rather than righteous, and never educational or patronising.
No type of theatre is off-limits or scorned as he explores all types in his writings, albeit with a strong preference for comedy, a genre brought to perfection by Molière but unjustly derided today. “A theatre where one doesn’t laugh must be laughed at” said Brecht, And indeed, if modern theatre is rarely funny, it is, unfortunately, too often laughable …
Making people laugh, however, comes with a certain responsibility. While anything can be turned into comedy, it must be done right. With his plays, Jean-Pierre Martinez strives to return comedy to its rightful place: as a mirror held to society to confront its own failings and excesses, comedy belongs right alongside drama and tragedy.
Screenwriter
Jean-Pierre Martinez has written about one hundred television episodes (sitcoms, police series, courtroom dramas, youth series, animated series…). He was also a professor at the Conservatoire Européen d’Ecriture Audiovisuelle in Paris.
Semiologist
In the ‘80s, he contributed to the works of the École de Paris, led by Algirdas Julien Greimas (EHESS, CNRS). In collaboration with Jean-Marie Floch, he facilitated the school’s Advertising Semiotics workshop and published several articles on the subject. He also worked for over twenty years as a semiotics consultant for some of the largest consulting firms, such as Ipsos.
More information in French: Jean-Pierre Martinez sémiologue
Drummer
In the ‘80s, Jean-Pierre Martinez was a drummer for Les Rebelles (rock), Expérience (jazz-rock), Mami Wata (African soul) and others.
He performed on stage in the Paris region, opening for bands popular at the time, such as the Blessed Virgins (from Pontoise, France).
Stage director
In order to produce his own shows, Jean-Pierre Martinez founded the Compagnie Libre Théâtre, based in Avignon, France.
The company’s first stage production opened during the Festival Off in Avignon in 2018 (Comme un poisson dans l’air) and two more plays were then staged in 2019 during the theatre festival in Avignon (Sketchs en série and Plagiat).
Theater critic
Because there can be no writing without intertextuality, every playwright is also a reader and a spectator. Which is why Jean-Pierre Martinez and Ruth Dahan-Martinez co-founded Libre Théâtre, a publishing company offering free digital versions of French classical plays already in the public domain.
Jean-Pierre Martinez is also a critic of performance arts, including theatre, opera, danse and live music. When he finds a production worthy of attention, he publishes a review on Libre Theatre aimed at potential audiences. When a performance is below par, he simply doesn’t mention it.
Bibliography de Jean-Pierre Martinez
Plays
All the play scripts available on this site can be downloaded for free.
However, performance rights—constituting fair compensation for the author’s work—are a legal obligation. Link to the Copyright page.
Jean-Pierre Martinez’s comedies are also all available from Les Editions La Comédiathèque.
These plays can be purchased online on every publishing platform (The Book Edition, FNAC, Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, etc.).
Autofiction
Writing one’s life… First, let’s clear up any misunderstandings. This book is not a guide on how to transform an ordinary life into a thrilling narrative. Nor is it a method for spicing up your existence so that you’ll have exciting stories to share with your grandchildren one day. It is simply an autobiography—or more precisely, an auto-fiction—because recounting one’s life inevitably involves revisiting it, if not outright reinventing it.
Short stories
A short story isn’t just a short novel, it’s a literary genre in its own right, with its own defining characteristics. Specifically, the art of writing short stories requires leading the reader to a surprise ending. An ending that must be unpredictable and therefore startling. As the story unfolds, the reader is enthralled by the suspense and carried by the taught narration to the reveal that they are burning to discover … unaware they were following a red herring to a conclusion that, while unexpected, is always flawlessly logical. But of course! exclaims the reader as they reach the last page of a well-constructed and deftly written short story. It was all there, I would have seen it coming but for the author’s clever storytelling. In this short story collection, Jean-Pierre Martinez, who is also a playwright and a scriptwriter of police television series, demonstrates his mastery of delivering the perfect ending to his audience. In each of these seventeen short stories, he takes the reader into a variety of universes to play with (and against) their expectations – and does so brilliantly.
Writings only currently available in French
Jean-Pierre Martinez in the medias
Interview on Bulgarian Nationale Television in the Kultura program on September 19, 2022, on the occasion of the premiere of “An innocent little murder” in Sofia.
Television interview on BTV on Septembre 22, 2022, on the occasion of the premiere of “An innocent little murder” in Sofia.
Interview on BTV Novinite by Daniel Dimitrov published on October 12, 2022.
Interview of Jean-Pierre Martinez by Julio Fernandez Pelaez in the Spanish journal Dramatur(x)ia (November 2009) (in Spanish).
Testimony in the Spanish journal Anagnorisis, Revista de investigacion teatral n2. December 2010: “Writing is an Odyssey.”
Interview of Jean-Pierre Martinez by Yetzi Giovanna Ceballos in the Mexican journal Galerias del Alma (February 2019) (in Spanish).
Studies and analyses of the works of Jean-Pierre Martinez
Ecocritical analysis of Jean-Pierre Martinez’s work “Après nous le déluge” as part of a Master’s thesis in the Department of French Language and Literature at Hacettepe University (Turkey).
Translation thesis of “Hors-Jeux interdits” into Italian (Fuorigioco proibiti) by Lorenza Fedeli, University of Florence.
Shohib, Ibnu M. (2021-06-01).” The Role of the Character Dave in the Script of Strip Poker” by Jean Pierre Martinez (thesis). ISI Yogyakarta. (in Indonesian)
Jean-Pierre Martinez, guest of honor at the SITFY Poland Festival.
Video produced by the organizers of SITFY Poland and screened during the festival’s closing ceremony.