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Join us for a pre-performance Segal Talk live with Milo Rau and Servane Dècle about The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot at the Segal Center, the Graduate Center CUNY. Moderated by Frank Hentschker.
About the Play
Content warning: This event and its description below contain graphic descriptions of sexual violence.
“Shame must change sides.” With these words, as well as with her decision to make her trial public, Gisèle Pelicot has become a symbol in the fight to end violence against women. The Mazan rape case examines and reveals how, in this small town in southern France, ordinary men of all ages and social backgrounds are capable of committing an inhumane crime: the repeated rape of an unconscious woman. Collaborating with the Pelicot family’s lawyers, the court, psychological experts, legal commentators, witnesses, and feminist organizations, Servane Dècle and Milo Rau recount the trial, laying bare an entire system: patriarchy.
Rau and Dècle’s extraordinary “Theatre of the Real” documentary play examines the Gisèle Pelicot case in a four-hour afternoon performance with readings of documents retracing and examining this groundbreaking historic trial—a watershed event that deeply entered the psyche of the French nation. The New York version of The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot will take place at the historic performance art venue Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village in New York City. Judson Church still serves also as a diverse, vibrant place of worship with its own congregation—creating a spiritual community through the pursuit of justice actions, talks, family events, sermons, social justice actions, creative expression, and contemplation.
The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot is presented by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center/the Graduate Center CUNY in collaboration with the Judson Memorial Church, NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, and Festival d’Avignon presents in New York City a special performance of the the Vienna Festwochen production The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot—directed by renowned Swiss director Milo Rau and Servane Dècle. Supported by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York.
This unique presentation features readings of the trial proceeding in the newly translated American adaptation of the sensational The Pelicot Trial, presented by the Avignon Festival in 2025—regarded by many as the highlight of the festival.
See the world tour of The Pelicot Trial—Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot in Milan, Italy; Bergen and Oslo, Norway; Belgrade, Serbia; Stockholm, Sweden; Warsaw, Poland; Lisbon, Portugal; Avignon, France; and Vienna, Austria.
Photo of Milo Rau by Michela Di-Savino; Servane Dècle's image courtesy of the artist.
With Nicole Ansari, and others.
Research, dramaturgy, and direction by Milo Rau and Servane Dècle.
Production dramaturgy by Nastasia Griese.
Audiences are free to take breaks at their own discretion.
New York Casting: Nicole Ansari
Judson Church: Maggie Goldner
Consulate General of Switzerland: Elena Bänninger
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts: Jay Wegman
Vienna Festwochen: Monika Huber
Segal Theatre Center: Frank Hentschker
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