Jonathan Capdevielle was born in 1976 in Tarbes and lives in Paris.

Trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette, Jonathan Capdevielle is a director, actor, puppeteer, ventriloquist, dancer and singer.

He has participated in several creations, including, among others: Personnage à réactiver, by Pierre Joseph (1994), Performance, with Claude Wampler (1999), Mickey la Torche, by Natacha de Pontcharra, translated by Taoufik Jebali, directed by Lotfi Achour, Tunis, (2000), Les Parieurs and Blonde Unfuckingbelievable Blond, directed by Marielle Pinsard (2002), Le Golem, directed by David Girondin Moab (2004), Le groupe St Augustin, Le Dispariteur, Monsieur Villovitch, Hamlet et Marseille Massacre (radio creation workshop – France Culture), directed by Yves-Noël Genod (2004-2010), Bodies in the cellar, directed by Vincent Thomasset (March 2013)

As  Gisèle Vienne’s collaborator since her first productions, he has performed in almost all her plays between 2000 and 2015; in those directed by Étienne Bideau Rey and Gisèle Vienne: Jean Genet’s Splendid’s, Showroomdummies and Stereotypy, and in those directed by Gisèle Vienne I Apologize, Une belle enfant blonde / A young, beautiful blonde girl, Kindertotenlieder, Jerk, radio play, Jerk, solo for a puppeteer, Éternelle idole, This is how you will disappear and The Ventriloquists Convention.

Jonathan Capdevielle also works as a performer in films, notably with Patric Chiha (Boys like us in 2014) and Safia Benahim (Le sang noir in 2018). In 2021, he acted in the film adaptation of Jerk by Gisèle Vienne, which was screened in numerous festivals. He regularly collaborates with director Sebastien Betbeder: in Ulysse et Mona in 2018, Jusqu’à l’os in 2019; and Tout fout le camp in 2022. He will star in Safia Benhaïm’s film La nuit des gras in 2024.

In 2007, he created the performance-singing tour Jonathan Covering at the Tanz im august Festival in Berlin, the starting point for his piece Adishatz/Adieu, created in January 2010 at the C’est de la Danse Contemporaine festival of the Centre de Développement Chorégraphique Toulouse / Midi Pyrénées. He then responded to two invitations. In November 2011, he presented Poppydog, created in collaboration with Marlène Saldana at the Centre National de la Danse – Pantin and in August 2012, on a proposal from the festival far° – festival des arts vivants de Nyon (Switzerland), he presented Spring Rolle, an in situ project with Jean-Luc Verna and Marlène Saldana.

In 2015, with Saga, Jonathan Capdevielle opens a new chapter in the autobiographical narrative by working on episodes of the family novel, with his iconics characters and twists. This is an exploration of boundaries between fiction and reality, between past and present.

In April 2017, as an associate artist at Le Quai, CDN in Angers, he creates Cabaret Apocalypse, a multifaceted show that gathered more than twenty artists, amateurs and professionals from Maine et Loire.

In november of 2017, he presents A nous deux maintenant, an adaptation of the novel Un Crime by Georges Bernados. This first adaptation of a literary work stages the adventures of a murderous heroine who disguises herself as a priest to escape investigators.

The author Bernanos is also portrayed in this play, struggling with the difficulty of writing. The tormented writing of the author and journalist is reflected in his tense correspondence with his publishing house. On stage, the character of Bernanos gradually abandons the style of a crime novel to indulge in mysticism and religious imposture.

In May 2018, on the CN D – Pantin invitation, he creates Les Bonimenteurs, with the composer and musician Arthur B. Gillette. On a projected film with the sound turned off, the two performers offer a live theatrical and musical performance, recreating the soundtrack in its entirety. The first version of this project was built around the Paul Verhoven’s movie Speeters as part of a carte blanche offered by the CN D at the Silencio in Paris. In June 2019, a second version was created, as a trio this time, with the musician Jennifer Eliz Hutt featuring the movie Suspiria by Dario Argento.

In 2019 , Jonathan Capdevielle offers for the first time a piece for young audiences, Rémi, an adaptation of the Hector Malot’s novel Sans Famille. The show is presented in two episodes, one staged live and the other as an audio fiction CD distributed to spectators to listen to after the show at home or elsewhere. This proposition invites children to engage with a dramatic work with ambitious aesthetic and strong themes.

In 2021, he co-signs the play Music All, with the choreographer Marco Berrettini and cabaret artist Jérôme Marin, an hybrid proposition, borrowing from theatre, dance and cabaret. The creation of this show took place in Switzerland at the Arsenic in Lausanne.

Finally, in 2023, he presents for the first time the staging of a text specifically dedicated to theater: Caligula, by Albert Camus, in which he interpretates the first role.

All of these projects have common themes that evolve over the course of the creations. In particular, the construction of identity, diaries and the family through traditional culture and popular song, imposture as a form of devastating power, the confusion of genres and the distortions of the established moral order. Moreover, as director and author of each of his creations (original work or adaptation), Jonathan Capdevielle attaches great importance to the diversity of narrative material, which is achieved through the adaptation of literary works as well as through stage writing and improvisation. Sound work also plays an important role in his work. This is reflected in the sound of the voices and the spatialized diffusion of sounds and music. Thus each project is part of a research and writing of sound: the sound thought as a creator of spaces, off-fields, climates.

Since 2021, Jonathan Capdevielle has been an associate artist at the T2G – Théâtre de Gennevilliers and a member of the Ensemble Associé at the Théâtre des 13 vents, centre dramatique national de Montpellier.

Poppydog association is supported by the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d’Ile-de-France – ministère de la Culture.