Major Donor of the Greek National Opera

Supported by

The Greek National Opera launches a collaboration with the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Kavala, aiming to strengthen its network of partnerships with organizations across Greece and support new artistic creations. As part of this partnership and a new, joint initiative, the four new productions from this year’s 68th Philippi Festival will travel to Athens, hosted by the GNO, from 12 to 16 September 2025. These productions were all commissioned from emerging artists by the Festival, which is organized by the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Kavala.

Three of these performances – (Tree)², The Infallibility of One (1) DaisY, Rock + Thread + Heart = – will be held at the Stavros Niarchos Hall Backstage at the SNFCC on the 12^th, 13^th, and 14^th of September, bringing the audience in direct contact with site-specific works. The fourth production – (All)^ν those things we leave behind < for a tomorrow that will never come… – will take place at sea on the 15^th and 16^th of September, along the Piraeus – Egina route, transforming the ship into a stage and turning the journey into a memorable experience.

Inspired by the life and work of Chronis Missios – a literary figure and member of the Greek Resistance from Kavala to whom this year’s Festival is dedicated – and guided by the paradoxical equation of generosity 8-3=11, the performances will engage in open dialogue with the institution’s theme, connecting speech, music, and performance to the surrounding space and the audience.

(All)ν those things we leave behind < for a tomorrow that will never come…

“We divided the day into corpses of moments, killed hours that we will be burying within us, in the caves of our being, in the caves where the freedom of desire is born, caves we fill with all kinds of shit and the trash passed on to us as “values”, “morality”, and “culture”. We turned our bodies into an endless graveyard of murdered desires and expectations, leaving behind the most important and most essential things… Everything, we leave everything behind for a tomorrow that will never come…” C.M.

Aboard the ship connecting Piraeus with Egina, an exceptional performance will come to life, inspired by truths expressed in Chronis Missios’ work. An ode to everything we didn’t dare to pursue: desires left half-spoken, words that never found their way to our lips, and gazes that turned elsewhere. An ode to all those things we haven’t experienced – and all the ones we still have a chance to live.

This is not just an ordinary journey; it is an immersive experience, a movement, a transition, a return, a departure without a destination, a journey you set out on not to reach any specific endpoint, but to lose yourself for a while. There we will meet a version of ourselves who took a different path, is in another phase, and lives another life, illuminated under a different light.

The director of the performance, Marios Kakoullis, remarks: “The stage (and its world) becomes a fluid space that hovers somewhere between ports, memories, and fantasies. Phrases, texts, and images from Chronis Missios’ life and work will fuel the performance’s core, illuminate the ineffable, and stand by all that remains unspoken yet persists. This performance is a gesture towards the unattainable.”

 *Warm thanks are due to the Philharmonic of the Municipality of Aegina and Saronic 

Warm thanks are extended to the Aegina Municipal Band, the Saronic company and the conductor of the Thasos Municipal Band, Ms Evi Schoinaki, for kindly granting permission to use her arrangement of the musical theme of the performance and of the song “The Ballad of Uri”.

Brief biographical notes

Marios Kakoullis
Born in Cyprus and lives in Athens. He graduated with distinction from the Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece and from the “Vladimiros Kafkarides” Drama School in Cyprus. He specialises in immersive and site-specific theatre directing, creating performances that challenge traditional stage conventions. In 2022, he founded the HausCompanyTheatre collective, with which he presented (All)^ν those things we leave behind < for a tomorrow that will never come… on a ferry boat to Thassos, 608: Inferno–circular on a city bus and Animal Farm in an abandoned factory, while also directing Romeo and Juliet – A Romantso Club Tragedy. In Athens, he has directed works such as Stefan Zweig’s Fear and Firecrackers, while in Cyprus he collaborated with the Cyprus Theatre Organisation (THOC) on productions including The Inspector and Around the World in 80 Days. His work has reached international festivals in China, Germany, Mexico and Prague. He was nominated as Emerging Artist of the Year by THOC, while his productions have received awards for directing and best production. He has also directed numerous children’s plays in Cyprus.

Erie Kyrgia
Graduate of the Department of Theatre Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (A. Papadakis scholarship), scholarship recipient and honours graduate of the interdisciplinary master’s programme of the Departments of Theatre Studies (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) and Music Studies (Ionian University). She has worked as a dramaturg, translator and adapter of plays, programme curator, performance dramaturg, artistic director, production manager / associate and assistant director. In these capacities, she has collaborated with important directors from Greece and abroad, such as Yannis Houvardas, Michail Marmarinos, Stathis Livathinos, Dimitris Tarlow, Yiannis Kakleas, Konstantin Bogomolov, Robert Wilson, Tadashi Suzuki, Oskaras Koršunovas, Ulrich Rasche, Cezaris Graužinis, Dimitris Karantzas, Katerina Evangelatou, Yannis Kalavrianos, George Koutlis and others, as well as international choreographers Konstantinos Rigos, Yiannis Mantafounis, Andonis Foniadakis, in numerous performances and projects with National Theatre of Greece, Greek National Opera, Poreia Theatre, Onassis Stegi, SNFCC, European Cultural Centre of Delphi, Cyprus Theatre Organisation, Greek Art Theatre Karolos Koun, Piraeus Municipal Theatre, the Russian collective Chto Delat, the opera group The Medium Project, and others.

Andreas Valachis
Born in Athens in 1995. He is a sound artist who is primarily interested in music composition and the production of electroacoustic music. He is also a senior student at the Department of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens. The music he creates often intersects with other art forms, aiming to create hybrid artistic works. He is a member of HausCompanyTheatre, a theatre production company that explores the field of interactive theatre beyond the traditional theatrical stage. Ηe has composed and performed music for performances including 608: Inferno – Circular (city bus), ΜΝΗΜΟCΥΝΟ (Kallirois Theatre), Venus and Mars (Epi Kolono Theatre), Romeo and Juliet – A Romantso Club Tragedy, The Cherry Orchard (National Theatre) and others. He has contributed to large-scale productions by important institutions in the country. He worked as a musician in the National Theatre’s production of Evangelismos, the Musical and as a music supervisor in the Greek National Opera’s production of Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène alongside his teacher, Kornilios Selamsis.

Marion Allayioti
She is an electrical engineer with a PhD in RF Engineering and Antennae Design. She works for the European Space Agency in the UK and lives in London. She is also an active member of the HausCompanyTheatre, having participated in the productions 608: Inferno–circular and _Bam_Boom_, which were staged in Greece, Cyprus and Mexico. She loves travelling and photography.

Symeon Kostakoglou
Αctor and director. He graduated from the Athens Conservatoire Drama School in 2019. He has worked as an actor, director and assistant director with the National Theatre of Northern Greece – PAMAK, the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Kozani, Thiasos Antama, KNOT theatre group and others. His collaborators include Marios Kakoullis, Maria Vardaka, Georgia Kaouki, Aliki Stenou and Stavros Stangos. He also worked as an apprentice with Konstantinos Arvanitakis, Giorgos Zamboulakis and Thanos Papakonstantinou on productions such as Animal Farm, Noah’s Family, The Swan, Nekyia, Victor or Power to the Children and Hamletmachine. In the summer of 2024, he was trained in the Suzuki method in Japan alongside Tadashi Suzuki. He has directed plays such as 4 Scarecrows in the Middle of the World by Spyros Sourvinos (Theatre 104) and The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. On television, he has appeared in the series: Our Best Years, Love on the Run, I Love You… But, and others. His latest film appearance was in The Sun Goes Down Every Morning by Eleni Delvinioti.

George Ziakas
He is a graduate of the Drama School of the National Theatre. He has worked as an actor in theatre, film and television. In theatre, he has participated in the productions Romeo and Juliet – A Romantso Club Tragedy (dir. Marios Kakoullis), A Night at Epidaurus (dir. Nikos Karathanos), Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (dir. Aris Biniaris), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (dir. Ektoras Lygizos), Abelard and Heloise (dir. Dimitris Stavropoulos), A Christmas Carol (dir. Ektoras Lygizos), The Inheritance (dir. Yannis Moschos), and Antigone (dir. Ulrich Rasche). In cinema, he has appeared in the films Lula LeBlanc and O Teleftaios Taxitzis (dir. Stergios Paschos). On television, he has appeared in the series The Fire Bracelet (dir. Yorgos Gkikapeppas) and Psychokores (dir. Michail Charalambidis).

Théodore Vráchas
Actor and director of short films. Born and raised in Athens. He graduated from the Acting Department of the National Theatre of Greece Drama School in 2021. He has collaborated with theatre directors such as Thanos Papakonstantinou (Dracula), Dimitris Charalambopoulos (MA GRAN’MA), Amalia Bennett (City Lights), Romeo Castellucci (Bros), Fanis Sakellariou (Homeward) and Sjoerd Wagenaar (MetamorphoSEA). In cinema, he has worked on Angela Schanelec’s Thomas der Starke and Musik, Dimitris Asproloupos’ Sexual Distancing and Filippos Kordalis’ Aprosdioristes Sinantiseis. In 2024, he directed his first short film, Parebrise.

Spyros Bosgas
Actor. Born in Heraklion, Crete, in 1999. He graduated from the National Theatre of Greece Drama School in 2022. He also graduated from the Department of Tourism at the University of Piraeus. He recently participated in the productions Let’s Bet (Bellos Theatre), directed by Yorgos Pavlou, The Suitcase of Urania Celeste (Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center), directed by Sofia Vgenopoulou, The Line of the Horizon (Experimental Stage of the National Theatre), directed by Yorgos Pavlou, Splish Splash, as part of the programme “All of Greece, One Culture”, directed by Yorgos Pavlou and Video Club Fantasia directed by Nikolas Lambakis. He has also performed in the short films Spiti (dir. Sofia Sfyri), I Efkairia mou (dir. Dimitris Giotis and Spyros Gerousis), and Fylatto Pisti kai Ypakoi (dir. Dimitris Papagiannopoulos), among others. He plays the lyre and the mandolin and sings folk songs. He is a loyal OFI Crete F.C. fan and cinema lover.