Press Releases

SUMMER STAGE

Come and join us to Mela
Opening: Wednesday 25/07/2012, at 21:00

National Theatre of Northern Greece and the Municipality of Pavlou Mela initiate a new tradition, namely Summer Stage at the historical ex military camp Pavlou Mela by presenting the variety show Come and join us to Mela.
It is an original combination of variety shows and songs that sealed the course of this genuine Greek folk theatrical genre, directed by Giannis Kalatzopoulos and presented from Wednesday July 25. Iasonas Trantafyllidis made the historical research and selection of texts and songs.

From the very first variety show “A Little Bit of Everything” that was performed in Athens on 30 August 1894, up to today, the play presents the highlights of our modern history as they were depicted, mocked, and finally given to us from the Variety Shows.
From Charilaos Trikoupis’ “Unfortunately, we are bankrupt” and the Balkans, to Lazopoulos’ “Surgeon Birtsimpilidis”… From “Geia sou Salonik” of World War I and the Asia Minor Catastrophe, to Sakellarios’ “Bravo Kolonello”… And from Georgia Vasiliadou to the Open Stage, NTNG’s group of 30 members and a live orchestra will perform, sing, and dance following the steps of Marika Kotopouli, Mitsos Mirat, Zaza Brilanti, Marika Nezer, Petros Kiriakou, Sofia Vembo, Vasilis Avlonitis, Georgia Vasiliadou, Sperantza Vrana, Nikos Rizos, and all other famous people of this kind.


Note from the President of the Board of NTNG

Variety shows, as theatrical genre, show a constant presence in the Greek theatrical scenery from the end of the 19th century to today. Whatever origins it may have, its course has given it strong Greek characteristics.
As a theatrical genre it may have as a dominant characteristic the mocking of the current social and political life, but apart from this mocking you can normally find a deep critical approach and a self critic of our own faults.

National Theatre of Northern Greece has decided to initiate the Summer Stage performances, even in the difficult times we experience today and through the different initiatives it takes to come close to the audience. The Summer Stage will perform at the former military camp of Pavlou Mela starting with the variety show Come and join us to Mela.

I would also like to thank the Municipality of Pavlou Mela and especially Mayor Diamantis Papadopoulos for his close collaboration with NTNG.


Note from the artistic director of NTNG

In the difficult times we experience, a theatre like NTNG, that works for the public, should be able to give our society an optimistic, positive, and hopeful tone. Leaving the misery and its consequences behind us, we “escape forward” by making use of our people and operating with our productive units. The most important thing for us is to propose actions that will not be lost in opportunism or time, but actions that will be constituted and remain valid as traditions and institutions of our theatre’s policy. After the re-founding of the Macedonia – Thrace Unit, the “Action Theatre”, the “Coffeetime Theatre”, and the “Social Theatre Shop”, the new institution “Summer Stage” of NTNG is added to our activities. In collaboration with the Municipality of Pavlou Mela, and through a protocol that we have already signed, we will operate a new theatre at the west side of the city, in the ex military camp of Pavlou Mela, a historical place with natural beauties.

Our goal is to entertain the citizens that will remain in the city during the summertime and having a low ticket pricing policy we chose our first performance to be the variety show “Come and join us to Mela”. It is a spectacular and beautiful spectacle with 30 actors of our theatre acting, dancing, and singing under the guidance of prominent professionals.
We would like to thank the Municipality of Pavlou Mela for its participation in this attempt and especially the mayor Diamantis Papadopoulos for his constant support. We call to all citizens of Thessaloniki, neighboring municipalities, and municipalities of Northern Greece to support our attempt and help us build a solid tradition for the “Summer Stage” of NTNG. Meetings in Open Theatres are a memory of our Greek experience, a reuniting of the society we all once belonged to, before we were lost in the atomism of our individual lives.
In the hope of becoming one big company, we invite you to our Summer Stage somewhere in the middle of July. Come to sing with us the lyrics of our spectacular opening:

A memory
In place of a director’s note

The first time I took part in the “grown- ups” theatre was in 1975 at Acropol in the variety show Truths and Lies. I was then in the second grade of primary school. In the first act I was not playing at all, other… colleagues were performing, namely Orestis Makris, Georgia Vasiliadou, Vasilis Avlonitis, Rena Ntor, Alekos Livaditis, Kaiti Mpelinta, Rena Vlachopoulou, Giannis Gkionakis, Nikos Rizos and many others.
Pelos Katselis was the director, who didn’t usually direct variety shows, but Shakespeare’s plays and generally “serious” theatre. At the rehearsal he was respected and everyone did as told, but after three performances or so, the actors started to improvise to make people laugh, and I could hear them saying:
-Katselis is good, but he doesn’t know anything about variety shows.
-He doesn’t know it and he doesn’t care for it, he is in for the money…
-What can he do? He has a family to support

The ballet company of Manolis Kastrinos and Chrysoula Zoka, married to Giorgos Fountas, was dancing and the dancers were Seilinos, Metaxopoulos, Ploios, Sayor I think. Girls were also dancing, very pretty and half naked, I can’t remember their names, except of Eleni Prokopiou with the nickname “the little chinese” - I couldn’t get my eyes off her.

I remember a dance she had with Seilinos were Elenitsa was playing Red Hood wearing a short red ballerina, red ballet shoes, holding a red basket, and of course having her red hat, and when she went from her dresser to the stage, Louizos, the mechanic would always whisper to her: “You are on fire, and I am the fireman” and she would laugh and tell him off, and I was always jealous. Silinos was the bad wolf. He was naked on the top, only wearing short, grey pants and no shoes. He only had a tale and a hat with ears and I especially liked the fact that he wore the collar of a white shirt and a red tie that matched Red Hood. I also thought it was clever that after this dance, there was another scene with Red Hood by Rena Ntor wearing a huge pant that constantly fell off and she was trying to fix it, and as she was lost in the woods she would shout: Mister Wolf, Mister Wolf…” and then Rizos was on stage, saying, I’ m not Lykos (wolf), I am Nikos, and he was hitting at her and when he left she would shout: Niko, Niko are you here?

The greatest advantage of the show, and one I have never seen before, was the wagon. The wagon gave the set designer, Giorgos Anemogiannis, the possibility to do all sort of things. You could see Omonia square with Rizos playing the famous traffic officer and wearing the hat they used to wear at the time, and then Alekos Livaditis (the husband of Rena Ntor and brother of the poet Tasos Livaditis) would come in and tall as he was in his old car, his feet would show from the bottom of the car on purpose. Rizos would then tell him to pull over and Livaditis would come out of the car standing taller than Rizos, although the latter was up on the pedestal. And then the audience would laugh so much that the scene would end like that. Then the part of the set that showed the neoclassical buildings of the time would remain, but the wagon would leave and from the other side a carriage would come, shiny and ready to speak to you, and Orestis Makris would drive it with his whip, his talent, his boldness, with his everything!
I was not on until after the intermission, but I had to be there from the start – I could hope for nothing better. My mother would dress me in Mpelinta’s dressing room, who was a singer but also a leading actress. She was in fact playing my mother at the second scene, a drama scene, and I was going first, dressed in my pajamas on my bed in night light and I would pray for my mother to come back, but I wouldn’t say from where as we had to keep it a secret for the audience to see later. And then the bed would drive off in the wagon and prison bars would appear on stage and reveal that she was I prison. She would then play her drama monologue and then sing a song written from her husband, the composer Giannis Vellas. She would then be granted amnesty, we would cry out of joy, and the show would end. It was time for the applause that was not a simple bow and applause, but something much more glamorous, as Acropol had a “catwalk” – a part of the stage that extended along the audience seats.

At first, I was going on stage alone, after the company and right before the actors, who would appear according to their seniority or the name they had built for themselves. However, as Charlie Chaplin said that kids and animals always steal the show, the audience would clap and clap and yell bravo, and the applause would then abate and become stronger again when Vasiliadou was there. One day, Mpelinta came and told me that she made arrangements with Bournelis and that we would go out together. And so we did. And the applause we would get was stronger than any other and so everyone was jealous of her and one day she stepped on her gown and fell. The next day she came to tell me that we couldn’t go out to the catwalk together as it was not big enough and that I can go back to going out there alone. However, Vasiliadou overheard the conversation and she told her, “it’s ok, I can go out with the child”
And she would take me by the hand and once we reached the middle of the catwalk she would push me in front for people to applause and then I would go back and make her go even closer to the audience and the applause would never stop as people could tell talent as well as ethics. What did you say? Well no! These things can’t be forgotten.

Note from the Mayor of Pavlou Mela

This year we inaugurate a new collaboration between the Municipality of Pavlou Mela and the National Theatre of Northern Greece. Although we have worked together on the past, especially through the theatre of Moni Lazariston, this new collaboration has its own special meaning. It is our pleasure to host NTNG’s Summer Stage, a quality action in a higher level.

We respond to the crisis with culture. Culture is an investment for the Human and the society. Especially in these turbulent times, a theatre for the public offers a much needed optimistic touch.
This collaboration is set to begin in this city now that we celebrate 100 years of freedom as well as a hundred years of operation for the Western Districts.

Another important fact is that we enter the military camp. The Municipality will wait no longer. The citizens are here and claim those parts of the city that belong to them. We prove the need to develop these areas to provide culture and a useful green area. We bring ruins back to life, we bring the abandoned buildings back to life.


Contributors
Direction: Giannis Kalatzopoulos
Research- Text and Song Selection: Iason Triantafyllidis
Sets-Costumes: Giannis Metzikof
Music: Kostas Vomvolos
Choreography: Dimitris Papazoglou
Lighting Design: Stelios Tzolopoulos
Music Instruction: Elsa Mouratidou
Assistant Director: Iordanis Aivazoglou
Production Coordination: Christina Zacharopoulou

CAST (in alphabetical order): Kiriaki-Nefeli Anthopoulou, Loukia Vasiliou, Ekaterini Giamali, Ifigenia Deligiannidou, Thanasis Dislis, Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Eleni Thimiopoulou, Andreas-Aggelos karanikolas, Irina Keramida, Anneta Kortsaridou, Eleftherios Litharis, Georgia (Giolanta) Mpalaoura, Fotini Mpaxevani, Polixeni Milona, Christos Ntaraktsis, Giannis Palamiotis, Stavroula Pantelidou, Christos Papadimitriou, Anastasios Perzikianidis, Asteris Peltekis, Evangelia Sarmi, Vasilios Seimenis, Dimitrios Siakaras, Vasilios Spiropoulos, Georgios Sfiridis, Stergios Tzaferis, Chrisoula Toumanidou, Giannis Tsatsaris, Athanasios Feretzelis.
Musicians: Tasos Misirlis, Nikos Psofogiorgos, Sakis Laios.

Dates
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at 21.00

Ticket Pricing:
General Admission: 10€

Advance Booking:
Box Office and Webpage of NTNG
“Public” stores Thessaloniki and at www.public.gr



Box Office Hours:
Vassiliko Theatre (Lefkos Pyrgos sq.): Tuesday - Sunday: 9.00.-17.00.
Society for Macedonian Studies (2 Ethnikis Aminis str.): 9.00.-17.00

Tel No: 2315 200200

MEDIA SPONSORS

   

WITH THE SUPPORT OF