Alexandre Hardy

Hardy, Alexandre (c.1575–c.1631), the first professional French playwright, attached to the company under Valleran-Lecomte which settled at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where his plays, of which about 40 survive from a possible 600–700, were given in the old-fashioned simultaneous settings designed by Mahelot. They represent every type of contemporary drama but are usually classified as tragi-comedies, though many of them verge on melodrama. With a spark of genius Hardy might have changed the course of French dramatic literature, but his facility and easy success told against him and he lived to see the triumphs of Corneille, who first made contact with the theatre through his plays, and of the unities, which he had disregarded.

Alexandre Hardy , b. between 1569 and 1575, d. 1631 or 1632, French dramatist. His more than 600 plays are unexceptional, but he played a transitional role as innovator of the less lyrical, more dramatic theater later developed by Corneille .

Valleran-Lecomte (fl. 1590–c.1615), French actor-manager, first heard of at Bordeaux in 1592. A year later he was asking permission in Frankfurt to present biblical tragedies, claiming that he had already played these and the plays of Jodelle in Rouen and Strasbourg. Soon afterwards he had his own company, with Marie Venier [ Marie Vernier] (fl. 1590–1627), the first Parisian actress to be known by name, as his leading lady and the prolific Alexandre Hardy as his salaried author. By the early years of the 17th century he was established intermittently at the Hôtel de Bourgogne as the tenant of the Confrérie de la Passion, with occasional tours of the provinces and the Low Countries. The old actor Agnan Sarat, who more than 20 years before had brought his own company to Paris, was Valleran-Lecomte's chief comedian, and remained with him until his death. Valleran-Lecomte himself appears to have been well received in his early years as the young lover in commedia dell'arte-type comedies, and was always acceptable in farce. When his company first played in Paris, according to Tallemant des Réaux in his Historiettes, he took the entrance money at the door himself, and he must have been one of the first managers to establish a school of acting for young players.