 By chance Hubert Gignoux, the director of the National Theater of Strasbourg, attended the show on opening night and was instantly enamored of Koltès's work.Convinced that the twenty-one-year old fledgling playwright was a genius, Gignoux invited him to attend the theatre school at TNS in 1971.Within the year, Koltès directed and acted in productions at the Théâtre du Quai in Strasbourg,a company he founded.