The Passionnément TNN Endowment Fund celebrated its ten years this Monday evening, at the Franciscans Hall in Nice. A great opportunity to bring together all donors, partners and artists in a festive evening around the National Theatre of Nice.
Created ten years ago on the initiative of Benjamin Mondou, the Passionnément TNN Endowment Fund supports the general interest actions of the National Theatre of Nice. Its mission: to make culture accessible to all, by developing young people’s access to performances, by reaching out to distant audiences (hospitals, nursing homes, prisons…) and by supporting the financing of many events. The fund currently brings together some 300 donors and raises more than 100,000 euros per year.
The evening opened with a speech by Muriel Mayette-Holtz, director of the TNN. A speech in ten points to mark this anniversary. She notably warmly greeted the patrons gathered for the occasion: “Thank you for financing the invisible. You agreed to finance this invisible time without which nothing visible would be possible.”
The celebration continued with a special and immersive edition of the “Trials of Great Personalities” dedicated to Uncle Scrooge, and a surprise appearance by journalist Gérard Holtz, Muriel’s husband, as… Huey, one of Scrooge’s nephews!
Benjamin Mondou: “We tell ourselves that we are useful and that we serve a purpose”
President of the fund since its creation, Benjamin Mondou reflects on ten years that he considers particularly rich: “The balance sheet of these ten years is many festivals and events created, it’s more than 40 to 50 shows per year that go outside the theatre.” The fund can now count on “a core group of 150 patrons, supplemented by new supporters, bringing the total to 307 this year.“
Asked about the most striking memories of this decade, the philanthropist mentions a performance given at the Hélio-Marin Centre in Vallauris. A young man in a wheelchair had initially decided not to attend a play before ultimately taking part: “At the end of the show, he comes to see me saying: thank you, thanks to you, I had a good time. That’s the kind of thing that makes us say we are useful, that we serve a purpose.“
He also recalls with pride being the first to bring Hatem Ben Arfa to the theatre. That evening, the former OGC Nice player discovered on stage the actor Richard Bohringer without knowing him. “He said to me: I think that guy has talent, he can succeed!“, laughs Benjamin Mondou.
Muriel Mayette-Holtz: “The endowment fund is a bit our backbone”
For the director of the TNN, who arrived in a context weakened by the health crisis, the support of the fund represented decisive backing: “The theatre was not in great financial shape. I can tell you that fortunately they were there. It was a bit our backbone.“
She also discusses the many projects carried out by the TNN thanks to this support, such as the Poetic Olympiads or the Letter to initiative, which allows approximately 800 young people to write and read a personal text in public. This year, it will be “Letter to My Mother“, in partnership with author Delphine de Vigan. A project she describes as particularly moving: “Young people discover that in fiction, you can say a lot about yourself. Every time the media came by, everyone cried, I swear.“
She concludes with an attendance record that she qualifies as rare for a National Dramatic Centre: “We are among the ten most thriving CDNs today in France, with 87% occupancy rate, that’s huge.“
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