'' Tessa '' (French title: ''Tessa, la nymphe au cœur fidèle'') is a play written in 1934 by French dramatist

Jean Giraudoux Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux (; 29 October 1882 – 31 January 1944) was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work ...

. It is a translation and adaptation of a 1926 stage version by

Margaret Kennedy Margaret Moore Kennedy (23 April 1896 – 31 July 1967) was an English novelist and playwright. Her most successful work, as a novel and as a play, was '' The Constant Nymph''. She was a productive writer and several of her works were filmed. T ...

and

Basil Dean Basil Herbert Dean CBE (27 September 1888 – 22 April 1978) was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, after organising unoff ...

of the former's 1924 novel '' The Constant Nymph''.

Original productions

'' Tessa '' was first performed on 14 November 1934 in Paris at the

Théâtre de l'Athénée The Théâtre de l'Athénée is a theatre at 7 rue Boudreau, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Renovated in 1996 and classified a historical monument, the Athénée inherits an artistic tradition marked by the figure of Louis Jouvet who dire ...

in a production by

Louis Jouvet Jules Eugène Louis Jouvet (24 December 1887 – 16 August 1951) was a French actor, theatre director and filmmaker. Early life Jouvet was born in Crozon. He had a stutter as a young man and originally trained as a pharmacist. He receive ...

.Inskip, Donald, (1958), '' Jean Giraudoux, The Making of a Dramatist'', p. 182, Oxford University Press, New York.

References

Plays by Jean Giraudoux 1934 plays {{1930s-play-stub