As the health situation in France improves, the government has given the green light for cultural venues to reopen. Some theaters have welcomed their audience back already, while others will start their plays again next month once rehearsals have finished. 

But the COVID-19 restrictions on cultural locations have not been removed entirely as the government says it wants a progressive end to the shutdown. 

There is a 35 percent capacity limit for the moment, and all shows have to be over before the 9 p.m. nightly curfew. 
 

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Theaters, ballet performances, and opera houses were closed to performers and audiences since the imposition of the second national lockdown in October 2020. 

Cinemas, museums, and galleries were all also shut for six months. Cultural venues are now open again - but still restricted by the curfew and capacity limits. 

"I was never afraid comedians wouldn't come back," says Shirley Souagnon, from Barbes Comedy Club, in northern Paris. 
 

"During the lockdown, they were asking us when we would open. Our fear was more about the public, but they are here and we thank them for that." 

The comedies on-stage were canceled as the tragedy of the second and third waves of COVID-19 infections hit France. 
 

Nearly 700,000 people are working in France's culture sector, and when theaters closed, it meant actors, directors and front-of-house staff could not work. 

They have since adapted their working practices to the signs of the times to make their venues COVID-19 compliant. 

But the half-year cultural shutdown - from last autumn to this spring - went on too long for the director of one playhouse in Paris. 

"I fought a lot against the Ministry of Culture. I fought because I realized they weren't taking care of culture, that this was just a little thing for them," said Jean-Michel Ribes, the director of the Theatre du Rond-Point, in central Paris. 

"It was a very political stance. Maybe they didn't want to seem like they were giving us preferential treatment over restaurants and bars." 

Actors did not take the six-month closure willingly. 

The Odeon is one of France's six national theaters, and it was one of around 100 theaters occupied this year by protesters. 

The government granted a four-month extension to its COVID-19 relief program for entertainment workers, but the demonstrators were calling for a year-long extension instead.