Yiannis Metzikof 
Yiannis Metzikof is a set and costume designer. He was born in 1955 in Kastelli Kissamou, Chania, and grew up in Kastella, Piraeus. A 1980 graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts, he studied under Yiannis Moralis in the Painting Department and Vassilis Vassiliadis in the Set and Costume Design Department. After completing his military service, and having already presented his work in several solo and group exhibitions of painting and sculptural structures in Greece and abroad, he turned his focus to the theatre, specifically to set and costume design. Giorgos Michailidis was the person who first introduced him to the public with the production of John Ford’s "'Tis Pity She's a Whore." Since then, and for many years, he has worked on numerous productions at the National Theatre of Greece, the National Theatre of Northern Greece (NTNG), the Cyprus Theatre Organisation (THOC), the Art Theatre (Theatro Technis), the Greek National Opera, the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron), most Municipal and Regional Theatres (DI.PE.THE.), many private troupes, international productions, and every form and genre of theatre. He has collaborated with major directors (Cacoyannis, Volanakis, Drese, Bakas, Voutsinas, Koundouros, Evangelatos, Kartalof, Michailidis, Tsianos, Houvardas, Zelenski, Nikolaidis, Marmarinos, Kakleas, Tsakiris, Chatzakis, Trivizas, Charalambous, Gavriilidis, Chronopoulos, Mastorakis, Filippoglou, Kountouri, among others), as well as choreographers like Zouzou Nikoloudi, Dimitris Papaioannou, and others. Exhibitions by Yiannis Metzikof have been hosted at the Alexander Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg, the Valencia City Museum, the São Paulo Biennale, the Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels, and in many Greek collections and showcases. In the autumn of 2010, the National Gallery of Greece honoured him by presenting his entire visual work for the theatre in an exhibition that lasted several months. This exhibition was also presented in his birthplace, Chania, and concluded its run at London's Covent Garden on 26 October 2011.
 
In 2025, he was awarded an honourary doctorate by the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese.
 
John Robert O’Toole

John Robert O’Toole is an Australian teacher, academic, author, and drama educator, as well as an Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne and Griffith University. For fifty years, he has been teaching, researching, and writing about drama-in-education, process drama, theatre-in-education, applied theatre, and applied theatre research methodologies, spanning all age groups and six continents, always with an emphasis on collaborative learning, curriculum development, culture, politics, and education. He has written and co-authored over twenty books, including student textbooks, teacher texts, and arts research methods. His most significant publication is the 1992 book The Process of Drama, which established the term "process drama" in international literature and theatre practice. Among his other notable works are publications in academic journals, including Teaching Education, as well as books such as Educational Research: Creative Thinking and Doing and plays entitled The Beekeeper’s Boy and Twilight Valley Blues. He has founded drama education groups, theatre companies, and research centres in many parts of the world, and has facilitated numerous drama education programmes, testing a variety of techniques. In 2013, he was the lead author for the arts and drama education in the Australian National Curriculum. He is active in curriculum development and professional associations, and is a founding member of Drama Queensland and Drama Australia. In 2002, he received the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Lifetime Research Award. In 2014, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to drama education.

In 2025, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese.


 
Olga Taxidou

Olga Taxidou is an Emeritus Professor of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of Edinburgh and a Visiting Professor of Hellenic Studies at New York University (NYU). She is a board member of the Scottish Universities' International Summer School and a member of the AHRC Peer Review College. After completing her PhD at the University of Edinburgh with distinction, Olga Taxidou served as a lecturer in the Department of Drama at the University of Exeter for three years, before returning to Edinburgh in 1995. In addition to her research activity, her contribution to the field of Theatre and Performance Studies includes adaptations of Greek tragedies into English, some of which have been performed at festivals and theatre venues internationally by well-known theatre companies, such as the Lee Breuer - Mabou Mines Theater company in New York. She has collaborated with the Edinburgh International Festival and has contributed to the creation of a postgraduate theatre studies programme at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests focus primarily on the fields of Theatre History and Performance Studies, with an emphasis on modernism. She has published a significant number of studies on the work of Edward Gordon Craig and the relationship between Anglophone modernism and the historical avant-garde. Her research also focuses on the relationship between modernist experimentation and tradition, classicism, and Hellenism.

In 2023, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese.

 

 Ioanna Papantoniou
Ioanna Papantoniou is a stage designer. She was born in Athens in 1936. She is a stage designer, as well as the founder and president of the B. Papantoniou Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation. She studied set and costume design at the Wimbledon School of Art in London (1966–1970). Upon returning to Greece, she did her first professional work—sets and costumes for Mayakovsky's The Bedbug (1971) for the "Proskinio" theatre group—which was assigned to her by Alexis Solomos. In the same year, she made her debut in ancient Greek drama with Thesmophoriazusae, staged at the Kipou Theatre in Thessaloniki. Ioanna Papantoniou was the first female stage designer at Epidaurus, thanks to Alexis Solomos, creating the sets and costumes for the National Theatre's production of Orestes (1971). She collaborated with the Art Theatre (Theatro Technis) and Karolos Koun for five consecutive years, as well as with the Alexis Minotis – Katina Paxinou theatre company. This was followed by collaborations with the National Theatre of Greece, the State Theatre of Northern Greece, Municipal and Regional Theatres, independent theatre companies, and the Royal Exchange Theatre. Through her rich set and costume design work, she covered the entire spectrum of the Greek and international, classical and contemporary repertoire. In works of ancient drama, she places great emphasis on costumes, in both shape and colour, and removes decorative elements from the stage, resulting in a strict simplicity. Her love for Greek costume is connected to the Lyceum Club of Greek Women from an early age, when her mother took her there to learn Greek dances. A few years later, as a teenager, she began collecting museum pieces and traditional folk costumes. In 1974, she achieved her goal when, with a collection numbering 6,000 objects, she founded the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation, housed in Nafplio. It now numbers more than 25,000 objects. In 1981, it was awarded the European Museum of the Year Award. Ioanna Papantoniou has taught in the Theatre Studies Departments of the University of Patras (1992–1993) and the University of Athens (1993–1996). Her design work is complemented by her writing, with books including: Greek Costumes, Costumes of Macedonia, Local Costumes of Thrace, Sarakatsani: Costumes and Ornaments, and From the Fall of Constantinople to the Liberation, among others. She has been honoured by the Academy of Athens (1981), won an award for her costumes in Photos Lambrinos' film Doxobus (1987), and has also been honoured with the Gold Cross of the Order of the Phoenix.
 
In 2023, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese.

 

Theodoros Terzopoulos
Theodoros Terzopoulos is a theatre director. He was born in 1945 in Makrygialos, Pieria. He studied at the K. Michailidis Drama School (Athens, 1965–1967) under G. Sevastikoglou, L. Trivizas, and K. Michailidis, and completed his studies at the Berliner Ensemble in Germany (1973–1976), where he also worked as an assistant director, apprenticing alongside his mentor Heiner Müller, as well as Manfred Wekwerth, Ruth Berghaus, and Ekkehard Schall. From 1981 to 1983, he served as the Director of the Drama School of the State Theatre of Northern Greece. From 1985 and for approximately 15 years, he was the Artistic Director of the International Meetings of Ancient Drama in Delphi, where he invited prominent figures of world theatre, such as Heiner Müller, Tadashi Suzuki, Robert Wilson, Andrei Șerban, Wole Soyinka, Min Tanaka, among others. In 1985, he founded the Attis Theatre company, with which he presented the groundbreaking production of Euripides' Bacchae in 1986, radically transforming the way ancient Greek tragedy is staged by introducing elements of extreme physicality and ritualism. His approach emphasizes tragic dimensions, giving voice to a theatre born from the depths. For 40 years, Theodoros Terzopoulos and the Attis Theatre have presented 2,300 performances at many acclaimed international festivals and theatres. His method and dramaturgical approach to ancient Greek tragedy are taught in more than thirty Drama Schools, Academies, Institutes, and University Departments of Classical Studies worldwide. Books on his work have been translated and published in many languages. Tributes honoring the entirety of his work and contribution have taken place in countries such as China, Poland, Italy, Russia, Colombia, Germany, Greece, Austria, Spain, the USA, and Cyprus. In 2018, the European Cultural Centre of Delphi, with the support of the Onassis Foundation, organized a major tribute to his work entitled The Return of Dionysus. In 1994, Theodoros Terzopoulos spearheaded the establishment of the Theatre Olympics in Delphi, chairing the International Committee, which comprised—as co-founding members—eminent figures of the theatre such as Tadashi Suzuki, Heiner Müller, Robert Wilson, Núria Espert, Yuri Lyubimov, and Tony Harrison. To this day, he continues to serve as the Chairman of the International Committee of the Theatre Olympics. Since 1990, he has been a founding member of the International Institute of Mediterranean Theatre, which involves 22 countries from the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and the Balkans.
 
In 2013, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese.
 
 
Eugenio Barba
Eugenio Barba, a Dane of Italian origin, is a theatre director, theorist, and founder of the Odin Teatret and the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA). He is one of the major points of reference in contemporary theatre. In 1945, at the age of 17, he emigrated to Norway. In 1960, he dedicated himself to the theatre and studied, on a scholarship, at the Warsaw Theatre School in Poland; his theatre studies continued under Jerzy Grotowski. In 1964, he founded the "Odin Teatret" in Oslo. The theatre company subsequently relocated to Holstebro, Denmark, where it established the Inter-Scandinavian Theatre Laboratory. Having started as a self-taught group, it was recognized within a few years—during the late 1960s and 1970s—as one of the most important theatre companies. In the early 1980s, through his books and empirical research, Barba described a new field of study which he named "Theatre Anthropology," focusing on the comparative research of the techniques of performers and artists across various cultural traditions. He is the author of a total of 24 books and countless essays published in more than thirty countries. Some of his most important books (The Paper Canoe and The Floating Islands published by "Dodoni", The Secret Art of the Performer published by "KOAN", and The Land of Ashes and Diamonds published by "Gavrielides") have also been translated into Greek. In 2000, he was awarded the Sonning Prize, which is presented every two years by the University of Copenhagen to individuals who have made a significant contribution to the development of European culture. This prize has also been awarded to Albert Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell, Laurence Olivier, Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, and Ingmar Bergman. It is worth noting that the only previous Danish recipient of the same award was Niels Bohr.
 
In 2019, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese.

 

Yannis Kokkos

Yannis Kokkos is a director, set designer, and costume designer. He was born in Athens. He attended stage design classes at the Superior School of Dramatic Art in Strasbourg. Since 1963, he has lived and worked in France. He made his debut as a set designer in 1965 with Carlo Goldoni’s comedy The Mistress of the Inn (La Locandiera). For many years, he was a collaborator of Antoine Vitez and Jacques Lassalle. He has designed sets and costumes for numerous theatrical and operatic works. In 1976, along with René Loyon, he founded the company "Je/Ils" (I/They), with whom he co-wrote the play Journeys Before '40 in 1980. He made his directorial debut in 1987 with The White Princess. Since then, he has directed plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and Racine's Iphigénie, as well as operas including Nabucco, Tristan und Isolde, Cavalleria Rusticana, and Xenakis's Oresteïa. As a director, set, or costume designer, he has collaborated with opera houses including La Scala in Milan, the Opéra Garnier in Paris, Covent Garden in London, the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Vienna State Opera, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and the San Francisco Opera, among others. He has been honoured with several awards, including the Laurence Olivier Award and the Molière Award, the Critics' Union Prize, and the French State's medal of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. He has collaborated with major contemporary creators (Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, Georges Aperghis, Yiorgos Kouroupos), renowned conductors (Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta), and the choreographer John Neumeier, among others.

In 2014, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese.

 

Eleni Varopoulou
Eleni Varopoulou is a theatre scholar, critic, translator, and exhibition curator. She studied law (Athens), as well as theatre studies, mass media theory, and the sociology of art (Paris). She wrote theatre reviews from 1974 to 1996 for Athenian newspapers, while simultaneously contributing articles on visual arts and cultural matters, focusing primarily on contemporary trends. She has translated works for performances in Greece by Aeschylus, Euripides, Heiner Müller, Walter Benjamin, Brecht, Hermann Broch, Goethe, Falk Richter, and Wajdi Mouawad. She has taught theatre studies at the universities of Athens, Patras, Thessaloniki, Frankfurt, and Berlin. She has served as: President of the Hellenic Centre of the International Theatre Institute (1984–1992), Special Advisor to the Advisory Board of the Athens Concert Hall Organisation (1991–2011), Advisor to the Artistic Director Nikos Kourkoulos at the National Theatre of Greece (1998–2007), Artistic Director of the Summer Academies of the National Theatre of Greece (1999–2009), and Board Member of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival (2019–2022). She created and directed the Argos Festival (1994–1997) and directed the Berlin Branch of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture (2014–2016). Her publications and books in Greece and abroad are numerous. Her translations, reviews, and essays have mostly been published by Agra Publications. Her volume The Living Theatre: An Essay on the Contemporary Stage was also published in German by the publishing house Theater der Zeit, with which she collaborates.
 
In 2023, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese.

 

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