Easter once meant the end of the theatrical season in Athens and the subsequent staging of successful plays in Thessaloniki and other cities. Nowadays, it paves the way for a second start. After all, the conditions are extremely different.

For theatres to survive, a series of plays must be staged during the season –few are those that can make it featuring only one production per season– while there are also big changes in the production conditions (which will not be commented on in this note) and in the plays' presentation. In the past, Mondays and Tuesdays didn’t host any plays; now, they form part of a special entity of staging days and the same applies to the rest days of the week. On the one hand, there are plays staged only once a week, while on the other hand some theatres are like supermarkets offering a complex programme with many performances being alternated but without any artistic consistency whatsoever. It goes without saying that “going to theater” means going to any venue (suitable or not) that can host a performance. Actors, on the other hand, have to participate in various performances in order to survive (practically and artistically) – very often, we see actors in two productions a week.

Thus, due to the abundance of productions and the “mobility” of artists, the theatrical season does not end in Easter: new productions are premiered in an attempt to renew the interest of the audience and attract new spectators and some of the plays already staged continue to be performed as initially planned.

We could say that Easter is now a transitional period from the main theatrical season to the summer festival season.

Theatre without a beginning or end.

April 2017