Today is 19th May 2026.

It’s good to see you again. 

It’s been a whole year since I became Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Greece. Last May, we were talking about a theatre that was opening up and expanding its boundaries, about a theatre with multiple voices that is deeply embedded in society, having a clear artistic identity and a real impact. That is the theatre we believe in. We began by taking language as our guiding principle. As a meeting place and an arena for dialogue, as a personal and collective network. We have strived to make the NTG a vibrant hub of creativity, research, and social inquiry.

We embraced a diverse repertoire, with targeted outreach initiatives, distinctive theatrical vocabularies, innovative approaches to classic works, artistically ambitious projects, and unexpected creative encounters. The fact that the vast majority of our productions and parallel events were sold out, attracting many people to come to the NTG for the first time, and others to pay us a return visit, fills us with confidence for the future.

We brought you Kontakthof, a co-production with the Pina Bausch Foundation; Cow | Deer, a collaboration with London’s Royal Court Theatre – that travelled to the Schaubühne Berlin just a few days ago; The Cherry Orchard; Un Sacre; Doll; Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; You Have Five Minutes; Omega Station (a new Greek play that toured 12 parts of the country during the winter); a renewed Experimental Stage emphasising the process of creation through a fixed ensemble working with various artists; the Ancient Drama Workshop at Epidaurus, with Amalia Moutoussi; the Retrospectives Festival, featuring staged readings of key Greek plays; the Foyer D Interdisciplinary Interartistic Dialogues; Salons of Language, devoted to modern Greek writing for the theatre; NTG performances broadcast live in remote regions; Culture For All, offering eight universally accessible performances; the new National Theatre Web Radio; social initiatives from the Young People’s Stage; and workshops in which more than 800 people took part.

Our first year showed us to be a National Theatre that recognises the power of its institutional role and is constantly looking for new ways of linking people, ideas, and moments in time — expanding, in practice, both its own boundaries and the boundaries to our thinking. We know that our programme over the past year, with all its diversity and richness, was particularly demanding for the entire organisation. But – and I have to say this – the NTG proved it is equal to every kind of challenge, however great. To be a leading cultural body with international reach. And the National Theatre of Greece is its people. Whether on stage or behind the scenes, always working in its best interests. I congratulate them and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. 

We were able to implement and develop our programme first and foremost because of the support we received from the Ministry of Culture. I am personally grateful to the Minister, Lina Mendoni, the Deputy Minister, Jason Fotilas, and everyone at the ministry for the excellent working relationship we have enjoyed. I would also like to thank the sponsors who supported us last season and those who have shown their faith in us for the year ahead.

Let us now talk about the present and what is to come.

We are at the back of the Ziller Building, in its courtyard – what used to be its gardens, one might say. Just for a while, let’s see the building, the whole theatre, as a large, imposing, neoclassical residence with expanded boundaries. And let’s go on an imaginary tour of its interior. Follow me.

As we come through the main entrance – perhaps the ‘royal’ entrance for us here, stand for a moment in the foyer to admire the ornate mosaic and reflect on our need to engage with art, to reflect on all aspects of the human experience, whether great or small. Now let us ascend the wide marble staircase, as if we were climbing up – step by step and note by note – into a space of living breath and music.

We have arrived at the centre of the building, its salons, where people meet, converse, socialise, and become acquainted. From here, the private quarters of our make-believe residents extend to the left and right: spaces that are more personal, imbued with thoughts, feelings, words, or games. The bedroom, as protected as it can be; the nursery next to it, the room that holds everything, to which we always return.

We open doors onto rooms dedicated to specific activities. The library, for example, for knowledge and intellectual pursuits, foreign languages and research, diving into people’s histories, their passions and their cultures.

We go up a steep, narrow staircase into the attic, where secrets and spiders, boxes and old love letters are hidden. And if we have unanswered questions about our existence, feelings that seem not to fit anywhere, we will go down to the confessional, a space protected from everything that welcomes us when we have nowhere else to go.

Descending, we go through the dining room, with its long table where the paradoxes of family meals unfold – revelations, silences, or nothing at all when the daily ritual of eating passes without incident. From there, we go through a large sliding door into the ballroom, where we train the body to sweat, where we come together through rhythm.

In the far corner of the room is the large double-leaf window that lets light in from the central atrium. There, in that enclosed space, the light comes from above, revealing and burning, reflecting off the marble floor and diffusing gently into the surrounding rooms through the windows that face one another like display cases. 

At the bottom, of course, below stairs and towards the small yard at the back, is the kitchen, the base, with the equipment for preparing both meals and productions, where the household is organised and sustained, supposedly a woman’s natural place. There are lavatories and bathrooms throughout, on every floor, small dark and out of the way, or luxurious, with bathtubs and full-length mirrors, where fragrances and steam intermingle.

If we open a small door and cross the yard we find ourselves in the guest quarters, private rooms for those who desire their independence. Returning to the same small door, after turning a corner and going down a few steps, we come to the basement rooms, side by side, where the greatest revolutions – or small-scale acts of subversion – take place; where worlds that simultaneously alarm and attract are hidden; where we ask ourselves questions.

In a more contemporary version of our imagined world, a few kilometres away along the garden path, would be the bar, as isolated as it needs to be in order to gather together all the grievances, confessions, and free associations of the day. From there, we progress to the forest, a refuge for every kind of creature – not to mention for those of a romantic inclination, and abandon ourselves to its flow.

We have just sketched the plans of a pretend building that distils all the hustle and bustle of the world. For indeed, it is a utopian architecture that shapes this year’s repertoire. We are transforming each production into a space or room in a magnificent building from another era.

This is the imagined ecosystem that we inhabit, and we are giving you the keys so you can make your own uniquely personal tour of its interior. Don’t hesitate – go into as many rooms as you can and immerse yourselves in the experience that lies within. Open the door of the theatre and be free.

Just like last year, we are sharing with you only the core of our artistic programme. All the details of each production, including their creative teams and casts, will be announced in the autumn. Don’t forget that we always keep a window open for new works and initiatives to be announced later.

Our overall programme is rooted in landmark texts and the classical tradition, which we revisit, while also embracing the investigative theatre of today, drawing together different fields and art forms, and consciously remaining open to diverse voices and perspectives of every kind. These are the very same ideas I spoke of last year, but they bear repeating because they continue to guide us.

We will be expanding our repertoire even more boldly, with surprise collaborations, modern stagings of classic works, and new commissions from artists with a distinctive creative voice — many of them working with the NTG for the first time. In parallel, we are strengthening our network of partnerships through equal collaborations and co-productions with theatres in other countries and other parts of Greece. We are committed to the educational character of the theatre and social initiatives, to meaningful theatrical research, and to the cross-pollination of different art forms. To nurturing critical thinking and the language of the theatre. Always ensuring that our productions take place under the best possible conditions and with the highest artistic standards, while remaining attentive to the creative impulse of directors, and pursuing a pioneering theatrical vision.

Thank you all for joining us here this evening.

 

Latest updated: 28/05/2026