Radio Icons Days and Nights

Veaki Drama School  –  The Michael Cacoyannis Foundation

The Veaki Drama  School and the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation have started a collaboration with the proposal to rediscover the charm of  radio in the 21st century, to explore the possibilities which internet radio offers in the age of image.

A Challenge for Days and Nights from Radio Images.

The Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, prompted by the great love Michael Cacoyannis had for radio – having been director of the Cyprus Hour on the BBC from 1941 to 1951 – decided to honor this aspect of his personality by organizing theatrical internet-radio performances, with the foundation’s awarded performances from the last five years, in cooperation with the Scriptwriter’s Guild of Greece, which  annually announces the playwriting contest.

The Veaki Drama School, instigated by the quarantines imposed during the pandemic and the compulsory online courses, adapted its educational program to an audio-virtual direction.

In essence, plays were selected that focused on the voice, the sounds and radio production, with image elements wherever the respective internet platform allowed it.  The interesting result which arose from this educational action is also the occasion for the beginning of the cooperation with the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation.

The award-winning works will be presented in this original way, as an internship of the school’s educational program, using as actors their already trained students and their teachers as radio producers, on the Foundation’s online platform during 2022.

Visit:  www.mcf.gr

In this country, for many decades, radio has been more than just a means of entertainment.  Since 1938, when the first state radio station operated inside the Zappeion Megaron with a range of eight kilometers around the capital and with its short but lively program, seventy three years later it has not ceased to move us, even though many things have changed in its mode of operation.

The Theatre on the Radio flourished for over half a century.  Wonderful voices of great protagonists of the time, excellent radio producers such as the late Pelos Katselis, Costas Kronitras, Ion Daifas and others, gave identity to the Greek radio theater.

THE PLAYS

The first three plays that will be posted on the site of the Foundation, with free access for the listeners-spectators, are the following:

1.  The DOOR by Elena Christoforakou, first prize in 2021, directed by George Geogleris & Sarantos Geogleris.

2.  LAPSUS by Panagiota Dimopoulou, second prize in 2019, directed by Anna Sotrini.

3.  THE ENEMY by Argyros Margariti, third prize in 2019, directed by Nikos Gialelis.

Three different generations of directors, with different radio experiences, attempt to implement this original idea.

Video Art:  Evangelos Kallou

Mary Kaldara is the coordinator and organizer of this production for the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation and Anna Sotrini for the Veaki Drama School.

Contact person – Public relations:

Mary Kaldara  mkaldara@mcf.gr