Jan Clarke’s chapter examines the period of Molière and his contemporaries from the perspective of theatrical establishments. Focusing on three companies – Molière’s troupe (1658–73), the Hôtel Guénégaud company (1673–80) and the Comédie-Française (from 1680 onwards) – Clarke highlights a number of interrelated factors: the prime importance of a theatre’s location within the capital; financial structures ranging from royal patronage and ticket sales to concessions, for example, for the refreshment booth, as well as theatres’ multiple expenditures, including for rent, heating, transport and above all company members’ pensions. Across the analysis, Clarke illustrates how a theatre not only provided a living for company members and their employees but also contributed to the livelihoods of myriad other associates, from the most skilled to the most humble, the majority of whom remain anonymous, while others have left only fleeting traces in contemporary documents.

This chapter examines the fate of Molière’s plays in the years immediately following the author’s death as first the Hôtel Guénégaud company (1673–80) and then the Comédie-Française (from 1680) battled to capitalise on their Molière inheritance and make the most of plays with which the public was becoming increasingly tired. Strategies employed included ‘resting’ plays and then reviving them, digging deep into the Molière stockpile to produce plays that had not been seen for some time, and increasing the number of double bills given so as to enhance the diversity of their programmes. By these and other means, the Guénégaud company and the Comédie-Française actually succeeded in growing the number of Molière plays in the repertoire and in so doing began the process of turning Molière into the cornerstone of the French national canon. An analysis of statistical information from the company account books enables us to see how successful these strategies were at the box office, at the same time as revealing which of Molière’s plays were most popular in this period.