Artistic Director
DIRECTOR
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL THEATRE
Graduate of London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (1975). Additional
studies of drama and direction at the Wűrtemberg State Theatre (1980).
Actor
at The Open Space Theatre, Charles Marowitz, London (1974-75), KarolosKounArtTheatre
(1975-77), Theatriki Syntechnia (1997-1980).
Joint
founder, director and actor, Theatriki Syntechnia, 1977-1980. Tours to a number of festivals
in Greece
and abroad (UK,
Germany,
Norway,
Sweden,
Denmark,
Finland
and Poland).Organisation
of the international festival: "International Days of Open Theatre",
with alternative theatre groups from Poland, Britain, Sweden, Finland, Argentina, Cyprus, etc.
(May 1980)
Director:
From 1977 to 1990 Yannis Houvardas worked with national and state theatres in
Greece and abroad, directing more than 30 plays by Euripides (Trojan Women,
Phoenician Women, Medea, Electra, Hippolytus, Iphigeneia in Aulis), Sophocles
(Electra), Herodas (Mimiambs), Ben Jonson (Volpone), Tirso de Molina (Don
Juan), Fernando de Rojas (Celestina), Moliere (Tartuffe), Kleist (Penthesilea),
Strindberg (Ghost Sonata, Storm), Wedekind (Lulu), Brecht (The Good Person of
Setzuan, Man Equals Man, Baal), Genet (The Balcony, The Maids), Williams
(Summer and Smoke), as well as plays by contemporary writers, and musicals.
These productions were staged at theatres such as the National Theatre of
Greece, the State Theatre of Northern Greece, the Royal Dramatic Theatre of
Sweden, the National Theatre of Norway, the Norwegian Theatre of Oslo, the State Theatre of
Trondheim (Norway),
the Municipal Theatre of Stockholm, the State Theatre of Wiesbaden, the Lilla
Teatern (Helsinki),
and the Tribune Theatre (Stuttgart).
In
1991, he founded the Notos Theatre Company, dedicated to producing new work and
pursuing international theatrical collaborations. At Notos he has staged works
by Shakespeare (Othello, Twelfth Night, Macbeth), Goethe (Stella, Clavigo),
Euripides (Iphigeneia in Tauris, a co-production with New York’s La Mama Theatre),
Racine (Phaedra, Berenice), Bruckner (The Sickness of Youth), Ibsen (Hedda
Gabler), Chekhov (Three Sisters), Courteline (The Swaying Pear-Tree), Horvath
(Belvedere), Zola (Therese Raquin), Webster (The Duchess of Malfi), Sternheim
(The Bloomers), Euripides (Helen), Lesage (Turcaret), Dimitriadis (The
Dizziness of Animals Before the Slaughter), Kawabata (The House of Sleeping
Beauties), Coward (Private Lives), Fosse (Beautiful), and Lessing (Sara).
He ran Notos Theatre Company until 2007, when he was
appointed as Artistic Director of the Greek National Theatre in Athens.
In 1999, he started directing abroad again,
particularly operas. He has worked with the Gothenburg Opera, the Copenhagen
Opera, the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden and The National Theatre of Norway,
among others.
Photo gallery
