News

2018-2019 THEATRE SEASON

 

---

---

1. “THE WINTER’S TALE” by William Shakespeare
Translated by: Nikos Chatzopoulos
Directed by: Silviu Purcărete
Opening: 16/11/2018
 
The “disease” of envy, the obsession of revenge, the power of forgiveness. All these characteristics in one of the most beloved plays, written by one of the greatest playwrights of all times, William Shakespeare, seen here through the eyes of the great Romanian director Silviu Purcărete.

The ingenious Shakespearean narration of an intense story about love, envy and  abandonment. A dark fairy-tale, full of images and emotions, where time slows down and the heroes’ defence, strength and resistance subside. It is the story of King Leontes, who, suspecting that his wife is cheating on him and blinded by envy, will be driven to utter misery and loneliness. But one day, a big change comes: Leontes comes out of his lethargy, he becomes wiser and light overcomes darkness, because the power of life is invincible…

With Stathis Mantzoros as Leontes and Kleio Danai Othonaiou as Hermione.

CREDITS / Translated by: Nikos Chatzopoulos, Directed by: Silviu Purcărete, Sets: Helmut Stürmer, Costumes: Dragos Buhagiar, Music: Vasile Sirli

CAST / Momo Vlachou (Mamillius, Perdita, Time), Theodoros Ignatiadis (Polixenes), Panos Kammenos, Giannis Mastrogiannis (Musicians), Zoi Lyra, Giolanta Balaoura (Dorcas, Mopsa, Emilia, Court Ladies), Stathis Mantzoros (Leontes), Christos Mastrogiannidis, Giorgos Tsagkarakis (Dion, Cleomenes), Ilias Berberis (Comedian), Dimitris Naziris (Antigonus), Christos Ntaraktsis (Shepherd),  Kleio Danai Othonaiou (Hermione), Tasos Rodovitis (Florizel), Foteini Timotheou (Paulina), Alexandros Tsakiris (Camillo), Samson Fytros (Autolycus, Archidamus)
 
Silviu Purcărete, Director

Born in Bucharest in 1950, Silviu Purcărete studied stage direction at the Theatre Academy of his hometown. During the first years of his career, he worked with the Youth Theatre (Teatrul Tineretului) of Piatra Neamt and the National Theatre of Constanta (Teatrul de Stat Constanta). Since 1978, he has successfully collaborated with the Teatrul Mic and taught at the Theatre Academy of Bucharest. But his collaboration with the National Theatre of Craiova was the real turning point in his career. Much of his work was now highly acclaimed abroad: Tokyo, Melbourne, Munich, Vienna, Glasgow, London, São Paolo etc.
 
In 1992, Silviu Purcărete became the director of the Teatrul Bulandra in Bucharest. In January 1996, he was appointed by the French Minister of Culture to lead the Théâtre de l’ Union, a national dramatic centre in central France. In September 1997, he created the Theatre Academy of the Théâtre de l’ Union, a training school for young actors. A few years later, in 2002, Purcărete founded his own company with a group of regular actors.
 
Purcărete became an individual member of the Union of European Theatres (UTE). He also staged many operas at the Scottish Opera, Theater und Philarmonie Essen, Theater Bonn in Germany and the Wiener Staatsoper in Austria.
 
He has received numerous awards and distinctions, among them the French Order of the Knights of the Arts and Letters and the Romanian Star Order.
 
Helmut Stürmer, Set & Costume Designer 

Helmut Stürmer was born in Timisoara in 1942. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest. During a period of 40 years he designed stage sets and drew dress sketches for more than 250 theatre plays and operas. From 1968 to 1977 he worked as set designer for the State Theatre−Sibiu, the Bulandra Theatre−Bucharest and other theatre houses in Romania. He also collaborated with the Schauspiel Köln and the Münchner Kammerspiele in Germany. Since 1977, when he became a resident of Germany, he has collaborated with state theatres and opera houses in Stuttgart, Dϋsseldorf, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Hamburg, Leipzig, Nϋrnberg, Karlsruhe etc.He has collaborated with major theatres in Europe, America and Australia (Old Tote Theatre−Sydney, Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Theater am Neumarkt−Zürich, La Mama Theatre−New York, Volkstheater−Vienna, Théâtre de l’ Union−Limoges, Opera Basel, Det Norske Teatret−Oslo, Katona Joszef Theatre−Budapest, Royal Shakespeare Company−London, National Theatre−Prague, Teatro Colon−Buenos Aires etc).

Aside from his extensive work for opera and drama, he has also worked as art director for nine films. In 2017, the 4th Madách International Theatre Meeting (MITEM)−Budapest organized a Retrospective Exhibition of Stürmer’s work. His numerous awards include: Romanian Artists' Union Award for stage design (“Hamlet”, directed by Dinu Cernescu, 1974), Romanian Critics' Award for best set design in historical film (“Tanase Scatiu”, directed by Dan Pita, 1975), UNITER (Romanian Theatre Union) Award for best stage design of 1999-2000 season (“It Is So If You Think It Is” and “Hamlet” directed by Vlad Mugur, 2001), UNITER Award for Life Achievement (2001), Hungarian Critics' Award for best set and costume design of the Year (“Troilus and Cressida”, directed by Silviu Purcărete, 2006), UNITER Award for the best stage design of the 2007-2008 season (“Faust”, directed by Silviu Purcărete, 2008), Romanian Film Award (Gopo) for best movie set (“Undeva la Palilula”, directed by Silviu Purcarete, 2013), Best Scenography Award and Prize “for the most important theatre event of the festival” at the Romanian Comedy Festival Bucharest (“Fuchsiada”, directed by Helmut Stürmer assisted by Silviu Purcarete, 2016), UNITER Prize for Best Stage Design of the Year 2017 (“Erendira”, directed by Yuri Kordonsky, 2018).
 

---

2. “THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS” by Carlo Goldoni
Translated by: Errikos Belies
Directed by: Michalis Sionas
Opening: 16/02/2019

One of the best comedies of the world repertoire, the timeless play of Carlo Goldoni “The Servant of Two Masters” penetrates, criticizes and satirizes the decay and rot of society, as well as the corruption that is part and parcel of human nature through the ages.

One Servant, two Masters. Truffaldino, the sneaky, the resourceful, the blunderer yet harmless hero, who represents the servants of all eras, serves, fools, is paid by two masters and gradually becomes the lord of their lives. Through comic conflicts, passions and adventures, the characters seek love, passion, happiness... and the Servant seeks ways to survive. Nothing and no one can subdue this undisciplined Servant, except for love…
 
Director’s Note
There is a sound coming out from the navel, probably from the part on its right, or the part on its left sometimes, or a little bit lower. A sound that when we hear, we put our hand on our belly as if we were able to stop it, sharply, but never on time. A sound that never considers the gravity of a discussion or situation, that many times even chooses to make an appearance at the worst moment, during pauses and gaps. An unbelievable sound, indeed, that gets the person into trouble, misunderstandings, funny situations, confusions. And the worst is that, for the person who is hungry, it is still there, even if no one else hears it. Maybe “The Servant of two Masters” is exactly this sound. The rumbling of the belly.  
With Thanasis Raftopoulos as the Servant.
 

---

---

1. “ORPHANS” by Dennis Kelly
Translated by: Koralia Sotiriadou
Directed by: Takis Tzamargias
Opening: 05/10/2018
2^nd YEAR


A house. A family. A couple: a man and a woman. Her brother. Three people who, by the end of the play, will have discovered what boundaries are and how they are crossed. The dramatically timeless play by Dennis Kelly, one of the most prominent voices of the modern British repertoire, returns due to the audience’s demand, to the EMS Foyer, following an extremely successful sequence of sold out performances.
  
Director’s Note (extract)
What kind of orphanhood is the one that haunts us the most? Which one is more threatening to one’s life? The one of death’s loss and family abandonment or the one of the misdirection of a social system, that first promises and then abandons?
CREDITS / Translated by: Koralia Sotiriadou, Directed by: Takis Tzamargias, Set-Costumes: Edouard Georgiou, Music: Giorgos Christianakis, Movement: Frosso Korrou, Lighting Designer: Stratos Koutrakis, Assistant Director: Zacharoula Oikonomou, Assistant set−costume designer: Danai Pana, Second Assistant set−costume designer: Thrasyvoulos Kalaitzidis, Assistant lighting designers: Maria Ossa, Eleni Tzimika, Georgia Tselepi, Photography: Tasos Thomoglou, Production Coordinator: Valentini Kalpini


CAST / Christos Diamantoudis (Liam), Eleni Thymiopoulou (Helen), Christos Stylianou (Danny)

Press
The big advantage of this two-hour performance is Christos Stilianou. This actor, who can identify with his role, who uses every cell of his body, who automatically deactivates the spectators’ sluggishness, whose internal world pulsates and whose expression lures even the most distant of them.
Tzamargia’s direction moved to the rhythm of the aesthetics of the in-yer-face theatre, having as a basic tool the text’s language... We see Eleni Thymiopoulou at her best. She is top of the show. Exuberant in her silence, poised and correct in her outbursts.
“Orphans” by Dennis Kelly in EMS Foyer is the most significant theatrical experience of the spring.

The performance that expresses our time like nothing else is staged at the NTNG

Eleni Thymiopoulou is magnificent in the role of the older sister, who unleashes her despotic protectiveness in every direction. Christos Stylianou grips you with his performance as a sacred, astonished city dweller, trapped in his beliefs like a pigeon with nailed wings, before he gives in the sentimental blackmail and becomes an accomplice with dire consequences. At the same time, Christos Diamantoudis enacts Liam perfectly, like a crazy cauldron full of energy that overflows with social rage, latent love and keeps tightly the family’s fate into his shaking hands… The suitable word to describe the NTNG performance presented at the Foyer of the Society for Macedonian Studies is overwhelming.
One more “precious” gift from the NTNG: the “Orphans, a great success hosted at the Foyer of EMS until Sunday. As I gleaned, the production will return this fall for some more performances. Takis Tzamargias, who amazed us with “Our Class” and thrilled us with his superb “Misery”, now, with the “Orphans”, achieves one of his greatest “victories” … He leads his actors in stunning performances… Tzamargias rocks the contemporary text… The directing approach of this specific performance, through the exceptionally inspired scenography by Edouard Georgiou and the marvellous music by Giorgos Christianakis, enliven all the strands of the play and offer a “precious” gift to the viewers who sit within reach of the actors – sometimes… even breathlessly!  
I know Liam well… He is my friend’s son or daughter, my nephew, my “own” child, your child, –not necessarily an orphan– (not necessarily a poor child – not at all, not necessarily with dead parents – to the contrary, they are perfectly “alive”, in terms of benefits, of competition between them, – but not in terms of opinion, tenderness, “sheltered” ideology). I know Liam well, even if some of you, the viewers of Dennis Kelly’s play, came down to earth with that… I know Liam well. I also know Danny –he’s probably me– I have probably been Danny once; and Helen, I have her in mind –maybe she was one of my friends that I grew apart from, I never liked this “kind” of women– but… I know her well.  

---

2. “CLOSER’’ by Patrick Marber
Translated by: Thomas Moschopoulos
Directed by: Petros Zivanos
Opening: 15/12/2018

The play “Closer” by Patrick Marber was put on for the first time on 22 May 1997, at the National Theatre in London. It was a huge success and won the most important English awards, such as the Laurence Olivier Award in 1998, the Tony Award in 1999, etc. It was made into a movie by Mike Nichols in 2004, based on a screenplay by Patrick Marber.
 
Director’s Note
This is a tough English comedy –in the mood of David Mamet, but in the way of Harold Pinter– that processes some of the most rare and impenetrable minerals of love. With the lively pulse of a set game, in twelve images, four people –two women and two men– become involved in a complicated and relentless love situation, using their first and last encounters like pawns.

A work of fiction, without pseudo-romantic clichés, which bravely attacks the stability of our perception and directly challenges the health of absolute truth in love relationships.
Perhaps because love does not only mean suffering or causing suffering to someone. But it is also a new attempt –defeated from the beginning– to come back to this life on our own responsibility.  

---

---

1. “WAITING FOR GODOT” & “DA”
ALTERNATING REPERTOIRE

“WAITING FOR GODOT” by Samuel Beckett
Translated by: Minos Volanakis
Directed by: Yannis Anastasakis
Opening: 28/10/2018
Every Wednesday and Sunday
2^nd YEAR

The inspirational work of the Irish novelist Samuel Beckett “Waiting for Godot”, in the insuperable translation of Minos Volanakis and directed by Yannis Anastasakis, after winning over the audience and critics, returns for a few performances to the stage of the Vassiliko Theatre. Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot, hovering above a desert landscape. Two tramps, a half-eaten carrot, a pair of old combat boots, a hat that should have our name written on but has nothing instead, all in a strong performance that expresses the agony of human existence.

A comedy that satirizes the tragedy of the human species, from its onset until today.
 
CREDITS / Translated by: Minos Volanakis, Directed by: Yannis Anastasakis, Set–Costumes: Kenny MacLellan, Original Music: Manos Milonakis, Movement: Dimitris Sotiriou, Lighting Designer: Vassilis Papakonstantinou, Assistant Director:  Samson Fytros, Assistant set–costume designer: Maria Mylona, Photography: Tasos Thomoglou, Production Coordinator: Ilias Kotopoulos

CAST/ Foulis Boudouroglou (A boy), Giorgos Kafkas (Vladimir), Panagiotis Papaioannou (Pozzo), Thanasis Raftopoulos (Lucky), Konstantinos Hatzisavas (Estragon)

Press
This season, Yannis Anastasakis delivered a lesson of pure Becket-style direction…

With his ally, the imposing but also loudly symbolic set by MacLellan, the lunar lighting by Vasilis Papakonstantinou, the minimalist music by Manos Milonakis and his five actors’ sensational interpretations (Giorgos Kafkas, Panagiotis Papaioannou, Thanasis Raftopoulos, Konstantinos Hatzisavas, Foulis Boudouroglou) he staged a production of European standards and made Beckett’s speech a bit more modern and eerie than ever.
Volanakis’s wonderful translation (how much we miss him) was a great asset to the performance. The inspirational and exquisite staging by Yannis Anastasakis is one of his finest works! ... The strong group of his competent actors under his instructions achieved an enviable result! Kafkas, Hatzisavas, Papaioannou, Raftopoulos and Boudouroglou “became” Beckett’s heroes, bearing despair, fatigue, stalemate, yearning, their need to depend on each other, even if nothing comes of it!
Yannis Anastasakis’s direction was exceptional, while he extracted great performances from all his actors ... The set, signed by the talented Kenny MacLellan, was simply exquisite.
I was ecstatic with the poetic scenes I saw and impressed by both the scenes with bitter sarcastic humour and the clownish ones.
Yannis Anastasakis directs a “quartet” (or, as a matter of fact, a “quintet”) of actors who achieve two very important things for Beckett’s text: to “be heard” clearly and maturely and to avoid the danger of “big” and “small” roles, of “important” and “insignificant ” or even less important ones. All the roles, as taught, in Anastasakis’s “Godot” are equals and meaningful, each with his own unique language.   
10+4 actors who “shined” in their performances this season
Thanasis Raftopoulos gave a breath-taking performance as Lucky, Pozzo’s slave (Panagiotis Papaioannou), in the atmospheric “Waiting for Godot”, directed by Yannis Anastasakis at the Vassiliko Theatre.
How cleverly Kenny MacLellan’s set penetrated the big stalls of the theatre “and the horizon opened up”, to the words that Minos Volanakis translated so nicely −in a tough text− so sweetly, making the theatre overflow… Four actors, with their personal acting “baggage” highly intense −as required− and with their “witty” penetration into the roles, take you with them.

---

“DA” by Hugh Leonard
Translation-Dramaturgy-Direction: Dimosthenis Papadopoulos
Opening: 03/11/2018
Every Thursday, Friday & Saturday
2^nd YEAR

“Da”, the award-winning play of the Irish theatre author Hugh Leonard, after its outstanding success, its sold-out performances and the thrill and smile it gave to the audience of Thessaloniki, now returns. The twentieth-century’s bourgeois social and familial environment in Ireland comes to life once again at the Society for Macedonian Studies Theatre, through Dimosthenis Papadopoulos’s translation, dramaturgy and direction.
 
A son returns to the city he was born for his father’s funeral and relives his past life. Da (a diminutive for Daddy) is confronted with his son, Charlie. The father figure, the children’s relationship with the parents, the mistakes of the past, the loss, the price of adulthood, the cruelty that many times conceals love, childhood through the distance of time.

The play became known in Greece in the 80’s through Manos Katrakis’s theatre group.

With Kostas Santas as Da.

CREDITS/ Translation−Dramaturgy−Direction: Dimosthenis Papadopoulos, Set: Stavros Litinas, Costumes: Ilenia Douladiri, Music: Dimosthenis Papadopoulos, Lighting: Sakis Birmpilis, Assistant Director: Stefania Vlahou, Second Assistant Director: Chrysanthi Tsolaki, Photography: Tasos Thomoglou, Production Coordinator: Filothei Eleftheriadou

CAST/ Orestis Chalkias (Young Oliver), Maria Chatziioannidou (Mrs. Prynne), Nikos Kapelios (Oliver), Dimitris Kotzias (Drumm), Lilian Palantza (Mother), Christina–Artemis Papatriantafyllou (Mary), Anastasis Roilos (Young Charlie), Kostas Santas (Da), Dimitris Siakaras (Charlie now).
 
Press
A performance with love and respect for the text and for what it looks at... It was perfect for the central stage of a state theatre and reminded the audience of a charming and moving text. It was loved by its contributors and the public.
It is a joyful performance, simple but comprehensive. “Da” is the first syllable of “daddy” and the Irish award-winning author, Hugh Leonard, made it a title in a play that, since 1972, has been celebrated with glory, honour and praise throughout the world.
A play made out of the deep humanitarian tradition of the long-suffering Irish people, “Da” “speaks”, during the 90-minute performance in the NTNG, about the bourgeois social and familial environment of the twentieth century in Ireland, about England, the country that conquered Ireland and which his father hated so much, about the life in the birthplace of a child who faces the situation from the beginning, as an adult now, in an almost psychoanalytical and redemptive way.
“Da” is deep, gut-wrenching and so true! Dimosthenis Papadopoulos reached its core with soul − I laughed and I teared up! What a nice gift − made with care and excellent directorial ideas! Kostas Santas, as if he was born for this role − with humour, power, an enviable embroidery– is great on the dramatic climax, too! Da, his greatest victory.
The National Theatre of Northern Greece takes us to Ireland and invites us, as spectators, to the stage of the Theatre of the Society for Macedonian Studies, to surrender ourselves. “Da” is directed by Dimosthenis Papadopoulos, while Kostas Santas gives himself to the role of Da.
“Da”, an ode to the relationship of father and son... A text seemingly simple, yet capable of touching every viewer’s truth or at least the truth of those who, with an open soul, will follow the journey through Charlie’s memory.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that this role seems to have been written to be played by this actor. The choreography of the play and the director’s subtractive scenic approach give the cinematic sense of a close-up of faces, lives, characters, feelings, thoughts and events. Thus, “naked” on stage, Kostas Santas, through this interpretation, strikes directly into the heart of the more distant, until that moment, viewer.
A confessional torrent which, through humour, pain of loss and recrimination, confirms a lasting fatherly love. The stage is imaginarily divided into the blue sky of the giant screen and the sea sounds that make up a naval landscape, that of Ireland.  

---

2. “SCORCHED” (INCENDIES) by Wajdi Moawad
Translated by: Efi Giannopoulou
Directed by: Io Voulgaraki
Opening: 26/01/2019
 
Director’s Note
Two siblings, after their mother’s death and the enigmatic testament that she leaves behind, face a difficult mission. This will lead them to a group of unexpected encounters with faces from their mother’s traumatic past in the blood-stained Middle East and will be the road to unbearable and, at the same time, redeeming self-awareness.
 
Sometimes with the suspense of the mystery and sometimes with the power of poetry, Lebanon-Canadian Wajdi Moawad recounts a shocking tale of the hope that each generation has for the next one to be better. But, can the next generation −any next generation− escape from ugliness and hatred, if the only thing we inherit is anger? Perhaps the way to do it is to find its identity. To take its story from the beginning. To rebuild it.  

---

---

“GOODNIGHT MARGARITA”
Theatrical adaptation of Dimitris Chatzis’s “Margarita Perdikari”
Adapted by: Gerasimos Stavrou
Directed by: Fotis Makris
Opening: 13/10/2018

Director’s Note
Gerasimos Stavrou’s “Goodnight Margarita” is a theatrical adaptation of Dimitris Chatzis’s short story, “Margarita Perdikari”, from the writer’s collection of short stories “The end of our small town” and it was first presented in 1967 by Manos Katrakis’s theatre group.

The story of the play is set during the years of the Οccupation, in a small provincial town (Ioannina?)

The Perdikaris family is a typical image of the bourgeois province. It is defined by conservatism, greed, fraud, complicity, reciprocity on the social front and disbelief in the “interior”. It has been eroded by its own mistakes, its self-undermining.
 
This house-institution will collapse, beaten from within. The young teacher, the family’s youngest child, Margarita, will fire the explosives... When Margarita gets involved in the resistance against the Germans, she is mature enough to accept the way out, the escape from her environment. She finds her arguments in her own house.

Her death is the victory of life over society’s rot and death, that gave birth to her and consciously betrayed her. Its biological end marks the beginning of a new world that will replace the past world. Margarita’s last thought expresses her yearning and hope that the best world, for which she dies, is possible... or maybe not?
With Giorgos Ninios as “Periklis”
 

---

---

1. “PRO PATRIA” by Sofia Nikolaidou
Directed by: Pigi Dimitrakopoulou
Opening: 20/10/2018
FIRST PRESENTATION

A new theatrical play, staged for the first time, investigates after 70 years the unsolved murder of Polk.
 
Author’s Note
1948-1949: An American journalist is murdered in Thessaloniki. The government is upset and foreigners intervene. An innocent man is imprisoned. The case closes.
 
Seventy years after the assassination of George Polk, a theatrical play gives voice to the faces of the drama that shocked the country. During the pernicious civil war, hunters and hunted, victims and victimizers, Pontian mothers, sneaky American women, merciless lawyers, police and spies unravel the thread of the case, in a group of narratives.  And against them, there is a whole city, watching and commenting on facts. Some faces of History and some next door faces discourse and collide. Because History (with a capital H) is made up of people’s stories. An innocent man’s fate is judged by broken truths and powerful lies. And everything, always and everywhere, is decided “pro patria”. We can lose a man if it is to save a country.  

---

2. “THE ELEPHANT” by Kostas Vostantzoglou
Directed by: Yannis Leontaris
Opening: 09/02/2019

Director’s Note

THE PLAY
The “Elephant” by Kostas Vostantzoglou is a very special example of theatrical writing in the modern Greek theatre, as it combines the subject of the brutal barbarity of human relations in the remote countryside with an extremely bold proposal for the use of the Greek language. The local idiom −which may refer to Thessaly, Roumeli or Epirus− is associated with the abuse of the Greek language as a symptom of Modern Greek pathogeny.

The “Elephant” is a hilarious tragedy. The end of the play bears features of the “Shakespearean finale”, as most people die murdered, on stage. The catharsis of the punishment of the guilty is left pending; an issue that leaves the possibility, that the preceding murder could be considered as purification, open!
  
THE PERFORMANCE
The rendering of an extreme version of emotional primitivism that coexists with behaviours expressing contemporary Modern Greek pathogeny (individualism, racism, dependence on television image, etc.) is the ground upon which both the stage performance and the hypocritical approach are meant to move.

The action of the play unfolds in a remote mountainous Greek village. This fact also inspired the basic direction of the performance: the coexistence of stage action with the live, stage-based partnership and a polyphonic vocal group. This is the musical version of the same contrasting dipole, found in “Elephant”: the wild and the familiar. The live, on-stage music will work in two ways: on a first level, the polyphonic song will comment as Chorus the peculiar tragedy that unfolds in front of the viewer’s eyes. On a second level, he creates a rhythmic score, on which the play of the theatrical discourse will rely.

The actors promote their actions and their relationship with the props and the shaping of the characters, talking about both rhythm and tone with the music, combining theatre with musical performance. In addition, the proposal for this production brings a very important, but not very much performed, Modern Greek play back to the spotlight.  

---

---

“PETROS WAR” by Alki Zei
Directed by: Takis Tzamargias
Opening: 21/10/2018
 
Director’s Note
Alki Zei’s play takes place on the stage of the NTNG, and although it refers to the horrors of the war and of the occupation in Athens, it is not limited to it, it transcends it and it acquires an ecumenical dimension for the children all over the world.

Petros, an elderly person today, recalls memories, animating snapshots of his childhood and teenage life in a difficult period of history, when his homeland was held by a foreign conqueror, causing deprivation, hunger and death. With his tiny lens, he sheds light on people, relationships, ideas, he changes opinions, he demolishes facts and stereotypes, and through his wandering, he makes us look at the children of the war on our planet, the hardships, the hunger and the deaths, the hot spots full of children of our neighbouring Syria and he valiantly and vigorously encourages us not to lose faith in the battle we have to fight “... for a new life”, to find the optimism and the smile that we lose little by little. It reminds us that in difficult times, when ideas and values dominate, we can be excited about our country’s “little things”.
 
Our performance, following the footsteps of my former productions of this play in Cyprus and Athens, has an obligation: to shed light, through the eyes of Petros, on the paces of the children of the Greek North and children all over the world, children whose life is turned upside down, from one moment to another, and who have become witnesses and victims of a world that is becoming more and more violent. How tremendously great “History” defines little “history” and how it deregulates social life and affects the experience of a family.

In this third staging, the director aspires to maintain the elements of the power and the vigour of the two previous attempts at a textual (adaptation by Savvas Kyriakidis and Takis Tzamargias) and an artistic level (music by Dimitris Zavros, sets by Edouard Georgiou) in Athens and in Cyprus and to infect it with the ethos and the passion of the NTNG’s actors and collaborators, deepening even more on Alki’s timeless messages ...for a better world!
With Giannis Gkrezios as “Petros”.


CREDITS / Directed by Takis Tzamargias


CAST/ Lefteris Angelakis, Iordanis Aivazoglou, Ioannis Varvaresos, Giannis Gkrezios, Dimitris Kartokis, Aigli Katsiki, Dimitris Kolovos, Anna Kyriakidou, Panagiota Bimpli, Vasilis Papadopoulos, Katerina Plexida, Polyxeni Spyropoulou, Eva Sofronidou, Stergios Tzaferis, Dimitris Tsesmelis
 

---

---

“THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME” by Simons Stephens Theatrical adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel
Translated by: Margarita Dalamagka-Kalogirou
Directed by: Eleana Tsichli
Opening: 10/11/2018

The Youth Stage of the National Theatre of Northern Greece presents Simons Stephens’ play (theatrical adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel).
 
Director’s Note
Christopher John Francis Boone is a talented and skilled boy…
Christopher John Francis Boone knows the capitals of all the countries, all around the world…
Christopher John Francis Boone is a whiz at maths, he knows all the prime numbers up to 7,507…
Christopher John Francis Boone loves detective novels…

And the story begins exactly like a detective novel, when little Christopher, this special boy, tries to investigate the mysterious death of the neighbour’s dog. Passionate about solving the mystery, he faces various unexpected secrets and slowly becomes a protagonist in a story that will change not only his life... but also the life of all the people around him.

P.S.: Let us point out, that Christopher John Francis Boone is a lonely boy, he doesn’t feel accepted by his peers, he can’t understand people’s feelings at all, he doesn’t understand the rules of behaviour... he doesn’t understand metaphor in speech at all, jokes and irony... he can’t lie... he can’t bear to be touched at all... and he can’t always correctly say what is hidden in a box of Smarties... However, Christopher has many more abilities than all of us, the others…  

---

---

“LOOK!”   
Suitable for kids aged between 8 months and 4 years old
Conceived & Directed by: Katerina Karadima
Opening: 17/11/2018
Last Performance: 29/12/2018
2^nd YEAR

The sold-out performance that launched the Theatre for Very Young Children at the National Theatre of Northern Greece, returns for children from 8 months to 4 years old.
 
Marianna Avramaki once again welcomes the children and the grownups and tells them the story of a baby’s day at home. Feathers flying, dropping balls, changing colours, running water and a baby that grows little by little. A wonderful world full of colours, sounds and images will unfold in front of mums and dads who have come to the theatre with their babies for the first time.

CREDITS / Conceived−Directed by: Katerina Karadima, Set−Costumes: Lili Kyrili, Artistic Contribution: Antonis Mikrovas, Photography: Tasos Thomoglou

Cast / Marianna Avramaki


Duration: 30 min
 

---

“OUT UP IN OUT”
Opening: January 2019
Conceived−Directed by: Katerina Karadima
NEW PLAY
 
Katerina Karadima prepares a new surprise performance for very young children, that will be presented by the NTNG’s Theatre for Very Young Children, from January 2019.
 

---

---

MUNICIPAL THEATRE OF KALAMARIA
“THE NOSE” by Nikolai Gogol
Directed by: Foulis Boudouroglou
Opening: 21/12/18
Last performance: 20/01/19
CO-OPERATION WITH THE MUNICIPALITY OF KALAMARIA

Director’s Note

PART 1 – Revolution
Breakfast: The barber Ivan Yakovlevich finds a nose, in the warm loaf of bread that his wife gives him; he wraps it in a rag and gets out of the house to throw it away.
Breakfast: Major Kovalyov sees in his mirror that his nose is not where it has been for years – it’s gone.
The one who lost his nose tries to find it.
The Bureaucratic Maze is unable to solve his problem.
He goes out on the street with the area of the lost nose covered with a scarf. He doesn’t want to be exposed. However, the news that some assistant has lost his nose is circulating in the city. People are gathering to see the strange spectacle. He addresses the crowd and convinces them that noses couldn’t stand the dirt and the stink, and they escaped to the moon. The moon will fall onto the Earth, because of the weight and it will be crushed.
All of them hold the moon, so it won’t fall.
Revolution?
 
PART 2 – Utopia
Artistic creativity fever
Everything from the beginning.
No form is taken for granted.
Poetry – Theatre – Cinema.
Visual Arts.  

---

---

Theatre of the Society for Macedonian Studies (EMS)
“THE HUMAN VOICE” by Jean Cocteau & Francis Poulenc
Friday 12 & Saturday 13 October 2018
A CO-PRODUCTION OF THE TSSO & THE NTNG
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 53rd DIMITRIA FESTIVAL

THEATRE / Jean Cocteau “The human voice”/ NTNG
MUSIC / Francis Poulenc “The human voice”/ TSSO

A co-production of the TSSO and the NTNG, where the centre is Jean Cocteau’s one-act play “The human voice”. Francis Poulenc’s lyric drama, based on Cocteau’s play, gives both organizations a chance to present the same play at the same time, each one in “its own way”. In the first part, directed by Giorgos Kafkas, Maria Chatziioannidou will perform Cocteau’s monologue. In the second part, Poulenc’s composition will be presented, with the orchestra on stage, mezzo soprano Ilektra Platiopoulou and conductor Philippe Forget.
 
The joint performance of these two organizations will give the city’s audience the opportunity to see, in theatrical and musical terms, this breath-taking monologue of a desperate woman who is facing abandonment, enjoying the power of two art forms and discovering, at the same time, ways in which they connect and complement one another.

CREDITS / Directed by (1st part): Giorgos Kafkas, Conductor: Philippe Forget


WITH / Maria Chatziioannidou (Actress), Ilektra Platiopoulou (Mezzo Soprano)
 

---

---

“PEACEMAKER”
Addressed to students of Elementary School
Directed by: Konstantina Matziri
From October to December 2018
2^nd YEAR

A production for Elementary School students, presented in classrooms.
 
Director’s Note
The “Peacemaker” is a performance about otherness and inequality. It detects limits and disapproves of borders. A performance which proves that friendship has no colour if you know how to share, to trust, to respect and −what else− to love.
The unknown triggers a fear that can finally disappear, if we give ourselves the chance to get to know it.
“The blue team and the red team were such good friends. Until one day…”

CREDITS / Directed by: Konstantina Matziri, Theatre Education: Eirini Zoi, Theatre Education: Aneta Liaptsi, Photography: Tasos Thomoglou, Production Manager: Valentini Kalpini
 

---

“BAL you…!!”
Addressed to children over 10
Conceived and Directed by: Sofia Paschou
From October to December 2018
2^nd YEAR
 
Director’s Note
In “BAL you…!!” the eternal battle between the child and the parent is presented. Two opposing worlds try to understand each other, to communicate, to coexist. A teenager learns, grows, lives in the world of his room, the world of technology, his own world, while his parents try to find a “door”, a “crack” in this room, in this world.
 
“BAL you…!!” was created by the actors’ improvisations. The performance avoids being educational and presents reality / everyday life as it is, so that the viewer can see elements and pieces of himself. Without sets and costumes, only with their body and their voice, the three characters narrate our story. An entertaining performance, that opens the “door” of the spectator’s imagination.
CREDITS/ Conceived and Directed by: Sofia Paschou, Assistant director: Erifyli Stefanidou, Photography: Tasos Thomoglou, Production Coordinator: Filothei Eleftheriadou

Duration: 45 min
 

---

---

1) For prekindergarten, kindergarten, elementary school children and teenagers
For the fourth year, the NTNG organizes theatrical workshops for children and teenagers. The workshops will be held every Saturday and Sunday at the Theatre of the Society for Macedonian Studies and the Lazaristes Monastery.

2) For adults
The theatrical workshops for adults operate for the second year. Attendance is once a week. There are two groups: one addressed to persons 18 to 29 years old and another addressed to persons 30 years old and over.

3) For young people with disabilities
For the second year, the NTNG is organizing a theatre workshop for young people with disabilities (aged between 12 to 30). Promoting a theatre that embraces all young people without exclusions, a new journey towards expression, creation and the exploration of self and others through the art of theatre begins.

Workshop supervisor: Konstantina Matziri
 

---

"BIG DAYS"

"Big days" continue with tributes to:

1) William Shakespeare
2) Carlo Goldoni
3) Alki Zei  

---

---

“Frida Ki Allo” – Fly Theatre
From Thursday 4 to Sunday 7 October 2018
 
The exciting life of Frida Kahlo devised and staged by Fly Theatre.
 
Fly Theatre offers a visual performance based on the personality and work of Frida Kahlo. Using improvisation, projection and live video, the performers explore the character’s physical constraints and her contact with physical and psychological pain which prompted her to create a world dominated by movement and life.

Katerina Damvoglou takes on the role of Frida and Robin Beer accompanies her, creating the world around her with rich soundscapes, animation and live video. The result is a show full of colour, passion and truth. Together they “draw” on stage Frida Kahlo’s personality through her emblematic images and paintings.

CREDITS / Text: Katerina Damvoglou, Miranda Vatikioti, Directed by: Fly Theatre (Katerina Damvoglou, Robin Beer), Scenography−Costume: Ermina Apostolaki, Lighting−Sound−Video: Robin Beer, Production Coordinator: Anastasia Tamouridou−Artos kai Theama

Performers / Katerina Damvoglou, Robin Beer
 

---

---

“2ND MEETING OF YOUNG ARTISTS OF SOUTHEAST EUROPE:
ANCIENT DRAMA AND POLITICS. The search of the comic”
VASSILIKO THEATRE, THEATRE OF THE SOCIETY FOR MACEDONIAN STUDIES (EMS), EMS FOYER
22-29 September 2018

At the 2nd Meeting of Young Artists of Southeast Europe, organized by the National Theatre of Northern Greece, as part of the International Network of Ancient Drama, the concept of the comic element, its nature, its characteristics, its prerequisites for its existence in comedy, in satyr drama, even in tragedy will be analysed.


Focusing on Aristophanes −an expert in the creation of comic situations− all the comic techniques will be used: the comic of the situation, the comic of the characters, the comic of the text and the comic of the stage techniques.
 
The comic element in Aristophanes works subversively, in a way that is liberating for the Athenian Citizen. It relieves him of the anxiety and the fear and leads him to a “catharsis”. The satirical assault against the gods, against the political power and even the intellectuals, leads to the freedom of expression that is free from censorship and prudery. The comic hero violates divine and human laws and he challenges the socio-political reality. Therefore, it marks a new way of functioning for the active and thinking citizen. With comic “weapons”, such as surprise, overturn, exaggeration, ridicule, imitation, deceit, confusion, disregard for the conventions, naivety, modernisms, use of time, all the participants will search together for a contemporary and necessary concept: the comic.


The aim of the meeting is to link the past with the present and the future, through a series of actions, such as workshops, presentations, discussions, masterclasses etc.
 

---

---

1. The project “NTNG Forest Festival” is completed this year as part of NSRF 2014-2020, via the Region of Central Macedonia. (The NTNG searches for sources of financing, in order for this institution to continue successfully.)
2. During the period of 2018-2020, Educational Programmes will be implemented in classrooms of Primary, High School and Senior High School of five Greek Regions (Central and Eastern Macedonia, Thrace, Epirus and Thessaly), as part of the preparation for the “New School” and with the funding of the National Programme  “Development of Human Resources, Education and Lifelong Learning” (http://www.edulll.gr/?page_id=7 ).
3. Implementation of a programme as part of the research programmes of the General Secretariat of Research and Technology for Culture.
The National Theatre of Northern Greece is in contact with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Development in order to utilize the financing of NSRF Operating Programmes for both its Drama School and the promotion of its artistic actions.