PANAGIOTIS MICHALOPOULOS
Assistant Professor
Theatre Studies – History of Modern Greek Theatre, with emphasis on directing: theory and practice
Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre Studies of NKUA, tutor at the Hellenic Open University, and member of the Board of Directors of the Athens Epidaurus Festival.
He collaborates with the Kefallinias Street Theatre as theatre scholar, with Kapa Publishing as publishing consultant and as director of the theatre studies series “Theoreia: Studies in the Performing Arts”, and with the publishing house Akyvernites Politeies as general editor of the collected works series of Dario Fo and Franca Rame.
In the past, he taught in the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese and worked as a researcher at the Academy of Athens. In theatre and opera, he worked professionally for many years as assistant to director Spyros A. Evanghelatos (Athens Epidaurus Festival, National Theatre of Greece, Greek National Opera, among others), in dozens of productions covering a very wide repertoire (ancient drama, classical and contemporary drama, opera). He also worked for eight years as coordinator and director of the student theatre group of Harokopio University. As theatre scholar, he collaborated with many Athenian theatre companies and Municipal and Regional Theatres. He has supervised the publication of more than seventy plays from Greek and world drama, as well as albums, studies, and collective volumes. He has edited the content of more than forty printed theatre programmes, many of which include his work-and-life notes, chronologies, production histories, and translations of theoretical texts. He undertook the scholarly curation of three exhibitions on ancient drama organised by the Athens Epidaurus Festival at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus.
He is a graduate of the Department of Theatre Studies of NKUA and an honours graduate of the Department’s two-year postgraduate programme. He received his doctorate with distinction from the Department of Theatre Studies of NKUA with the dissertation “The National Theatre 1940–1950: The conditions of theatrical production and the question of directing”. For his postgraduate studies he was awarded merit scholarships by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) and the Sasakawa Foundation of Japan. His research, teaching, and writing focus on the history of Modern Greek theatre, the history of directing, relations between theatre and politics, and the impact of historical events on stage practice. He has presented papers at dozens of academic conferences in Greece and abroad, has spoken at round tables and on television and radio programmes, and has published his studies in academic journals, collective volumes, and conference proceedings.
Research Interests
- History of Modern Greek theatre
- History of directing
- Relations between theatre and politics
- Theatrical production and the conditions shaping it
- Theatrical editing and publishing activity in the performing arts
Participation in Programmes
- THYMELE: A Dynamic Open-Access Multimedia Dictionary for the Performing Arts (HFRI, University of the Peloponnese)
- Member of the research team of the project: “Theatre and Environmental Pressures in the Coastal Communities of the Mediterranean”, Jean Monnet, 2025
- Member of the research team of the project: “Digital approaches to archival research on Modern Greek theatre: exploring the archive of the creator Giorgos Patsas”, Research in Post-Classical Studies, Konstantinos Tsagkadas Bequest, NKUA, 2024
- Member of the research team of the project: “Tzortzis Chortatsis (ca. 1555–1604/1607), the first Modern Greek playwright”, Research Committee of the Academy of Athens, 2013–2016
Publications (selected)
- Panagiotis Michalopoulos, The National Theatre in the Decade 1940–1950: The administrations, the artistic work and the position of the director, foreword by Stathis Livathinos, Kapa Publishing, Athens 2018, 490 pp.
- Panagiotis Michalopoulos & Christianna Mantzourani (scholarly editors), Giorgos Patsas (artistic editor), Spyros A. Evanghelatos, National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, Athens 2023, 535 pp.
- Panagiotis Michalopoulos & Giorgos P. Pefanis (scholarly editors), Research, composition, interpretation: Approaching the theatre of Spyros A. Evanghelatos, Papazisis, Athens 2023, 684 pp.
- Panagiotis Michalopoulos & Christianna Mantzourani (scholarly editors), Spyros A. Evanghelatos, Tzortzis Chortatsis (ca. 1555–1601/1607), the first Modern Greek playwright, Academy of Athens, Athens 2021, 277 pp.
- Panagiotis Michalopoulos (scholarly editor), 30 Years of “Praxi”. Kefallinias Street Theatre 1987–2017, Publication of the Theatrical Company “Praxi”, Athens 2016, 281 pp.
Books / Monographs
- Panagiotis Michalopoulos, The National Theatre in the Decade 1940–1950: The administrations, the artistic work and the position of the director, foreword by Stathis Livathinos, Kapa Publishing, Athens 2018, 490 pp.
Current Topics
- Topic 1 — short description.
- Topic 2 — short description.
Conferences / Talks
- 2025 —
Undergraduate Courses
- Introduction to Theatrical Practice I
- Introduction to Theatrical Practice II
- Introduction to the History of Acting and Directing II
- Seminar
Postgraduate Studies
- Issues in Modern Greek Theatre
