Sébastien Kheroufi, named a theatrical revelation of 2024 by the French Critics' Union, is premiering his first play at La Colline, starring Reda Kateb, Élodie Bouchez, and Oulaya Amamra, as part of the Festival d’Automne.

His only inheritance is a phrase written on the ground in Arabic: “Bury me where I lived.” The son cannot read his father’s language. A night unfolds around the body, a decision to be made about where to bury him, between his homeland and his adopted country, while the love, violence, shame, and silence of a family resurface. La Colline warns from the outset: “Forget the suspense, the kid dies at the end.” “

The setting is not invented: it was in the refectory of an Emmaus shelter that Sébastien Kheroufi found his father dead at the age of seventeen. From this personal story, he has crafted a social drama that gives voice to marginalized lives and questions what society takes from its most vulnerable members, paying homage to those he calls the “bodies of nowhere.”

Born in Paris to an Algerian father and a French mother, Kheroufi completed a vocational diploma in mechanics and held numerous odd jobs before attending the École supérieure d’art dramatique in Paris. Here, he concludes a triptych begun with Peter Handke’s Antigone and then By the Villages.” On the stage of the Grand Théâtre, Reda Kateb, Élodie Bouchez, Oulaya Amamra, and Casey share the stage with Amine Adjina, Lou-Adriana Bouziouane, Ulysse Dutilloy-Liégeois, Benjamin Grangier, children, and a choir of local residents. Nacera Belaza is the choreographer. The text will be published in November by Espaces 34. The performance addresses situations of violence and contains explicit language.

Find this performance in our 2026 Autumn Festival selection and in our cultural calendar.

LA COLLINE – NATIONAL THEATRE
15 rue Malte-Brun, 75020 Paris - Metro: Gambetta (Line 3)
From November 6 to December 12, 2026
Tuesday to Friday at 7:30 pm, Saturday at 5 pm, no performances Sunday and Monday - Grand Théâtre
Running time: approximately 3 hours
From €8