This paper explores the history of theatre in the French Atlantic area,and particularly in late eighteenth century Saint-Domingue, in order to propose a new approach to understanding the cultural history of the Enlightenment.It is constructed around the analysis of a 1793 petition written by an African-born free man in Saint-Domingue, which quotes and reworks Voltaire’s play Zaïre, and gives us a rare glimpse into how one lover of the theatre was able to make use of it in pursuit of freedom for an individual slave. In order to analyze this petition, the paper explores the history of theatres and theatrical productions in Saint-Domingue (as well as in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Louisiana), the production of local plays in creole (in particular a re-writing of a Rousseau opera-comique),and the presence of enslaved and free people of African descent as actors, musicians and audience members. Ultimately, the article argues that the cultural production of the Enlightenment was deeply shaped by and embedded within an Atlantic context that tied together the Caribbean and continental France.