The drama project The Stones Speak is an initiative taken up for educational, recreational and tourist purposes, presented in museums and archaeological sites in the city of Athens. The words of Ancient Greek philosophers, poets and politicians are transformed into theatrical performances in three languages (Greek, English and French), in an effort to re-introduce the audience to great thinkers of the antiquity.
Throughout September, performances will be hosted at the Stoa of Attalos in the Ancient Agora of Athens every Friday, Saturday & Sunday (11.00-13.00), starting on the first of the month. During the month of October the project will be hosted at the atrium of the Acropolis Museum (same days and hours). Attendance is free of charge.
The unique character of this project lies in the interaction between iconic ancient texts and sites of paramount cultural and archaeological importance. The audience comes in contact with the ideas and discourse Ancient Greece’s greatest writers through excerpts from Sophocles’ Antigone, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Plato’s Symposium, Thucydides’ Funeral Oration of Pericles and Homer’s Odyssey, interpreted by students of the Delos Drama School under the guidance of stage director Efi Theodorou.
The project was introduced two years ago by the Athens – Attica and Argosaronikos Hotel Association (AAAHA) in an effort to promote the city’s cultural heritage and contribute to its tourist development. In 2018 the project received the Ermis Award by the Hellenic Association of Advertising-Communication Agencies, and its success has led to its being organised for the third consecutive year.
In 2019, The Stones Speak, organised by AAAHA with the collaboration, for the first time, of the Athens International Airport, received further official recognition through its inclusion in the programme of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, as part of its “Opening to the City” chapter, with performances being hosted at the atrium of the Byzantine and Christian Museum during the month of July.
N.M. (Photos are taken from the AAAHA official site)
