Conor Lovett & Judy Hegarty Lovett - Background.

Arrive in Paris in 1991 from Cork, Ireland where they work with Bob Meyer who performed English plays in Paris as The Gare St Lazare Players.  Conor trains at Ecole Jacques Lecoq. Within a year, mentored and inspired by Meyer, Judy direcs Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett featuring Conor as Vladimir.  Three years later and living in London, the couple, grapple with the reality of juggling day jobs while striving to make artistic theatre.  Judy directs Conor in a one-man version of Samuel Beckett’s novel Molloy, rehearsed in the evenings. They take it to the Edinburgh Festival to 5 star reviews and a Best Actor nomination.  Beckett’s publisher John Calder signs a ringing endorsement on the back of his ticket.  A simple and generous gesture that would subsequently open many doors in the Beckett world.

As a teen Judy had seen Beckett’s Waiting For Godot performed in a tiny theatre in Cork.  In parallel Conor discovered Beckett’s novels at Cork City library.

Following Edinburgh and a triumph at Dublin Fringe Festival 1997, Molloy is invited to to perform at Riverside Studios, London and at The Irish Arts Centre, New York.  The Lovetts’ first philanthropic gift arrives when D. Kern and Elisabeth Holoman offer them to live rent-free in a house in the french village of Mericourt where Bob Meyer  their mentor lived (Bob passed away in 2020).

In 2007 a French/Californian couple, Micheline and Albert Sakharoff, whom the Lovetts met at Rubicon Theatre, Ventura offer to support Gare St Lazare.  The timing is impeccable as Arts Council funding to Gare St Lazare following the financial crash in 2009 is almost non-existent. Arizona couple Chris Herbert and Nancy Welch, have been following Gare St Lazare since they met during the 2006 Beckett Centenary Festival in Dublin.  They also support the company until 2016.

Roslyn and Jerry Meyer in Connecticut, founders of The Newhaven Festival of Arts & Ideas become good friends and supporters.

In the early 2010s as many companies turn to one man shows Gare St Lazare, knowing that downsizing is not an option, turn to larger scale ambitions.  In 2013 Judy directs Waiting For Godot at The Gaiety in Dublin for Dublin Theatre Festival and on tour to Belfast, Boston, Shanghai and New York.

By 2018 the company have run a new play by US playwright Will Eno off-Broadway to great critical acclaim, have performed 3 shows at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festivals, create a 3 week Beckett Festival in London and play on the main stage of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.  As well as touring to Boston, Shanghai, Mexico City, Melbourne, Pretoria, Cape Town, Los Angeles and over 80 other cities in 25 countries.

Judy gives a paper Beckett at Conferences in London, Reading, Paris and Mexico City and Gare St Lazare host international symposia in New York, Paris, Cork, and online during covid, partnering with NYU, University of Reading, Crawford Gallery, Cork and The Irish Cultural Center in Paris.  Judy is awarded her PhD in 2022 for research on staging the prose works of Samuel Beckett . 

During covid the couple spend an entire year and a half not touring.  This helps them reflect on and appreciate the importance of their studio in Mericourt as the incubation center for 25 years of work, from where they innovatively broadcast live theatre around the globe, make Instagram Beckett shorts, and map out the future.

In this moment of reflection and anticipation for the years to come -they receive a transformative gift from their donors Paul Ralston and Deb Gwinn and they know instinctively that the best possible way to use this gift is to give other artists time and space in Mericourt contributing to Beckett’s legacy. In so doing they also acknowledge the donors that got them to this point. They create Atelier Samuel Beckett.