The Onassis Foundation Supports The Reconstruction Of The Young People's Stage At The Greek National Theater

The Onassis Foundation sees this as an opportunity to invest in the audiences of the future. By enabling the National Theater of Greece, a key player in Greek culture, to refurbish the ground floor of the Rex theater, constructing a new dress circle, stalls, additional boxes and new upper-tier seating and installing new lighting equipment, it is helping to shine a light on Greek creativity in the dramatic arts. The National Theater deserves a stage the equal of other major institutions around the world which also work with children and adolescents. Children are our future: they deserve the best.

This is not the first time the Onassis Foundation has provided assistance to the National Theater of Greece. Recently, it was the main sponsor for the Theater's 2015-16 season, and it also sponsored the teaching program of the National Theater Drama School in 2017, enabling high-profile academics and teachers from Academies and Universities abroad to be invited to Athens to teach.

In addition to the Onassis Stegi, the Onassis Cultural Center in New York, and its education programs and scholarships in the field of culture, the Onassis Foundation is always on the lookout for new cultural partnerships, given that its history is one of collaboration. Power lies in unity, and alliances between cultural institutions benefit society.

As the Executive Director of the Onassis Foundation, Efi Tsiotsiou, declared at the press conference held at the National Theater: "For the Onassis Foundation and the Onassis Stegi, the road to culture is a shared one. That is why we are setting up permanent partnerships which, based on trust, will help take us one step further. We have a long history of cordial relations and collaboration with the National Theater. We are here to open this space — a space which, despite various trials and tribulations, has now been remade from scratch and is ready to bewitch the soul, the gaze and our dreams once again, thanks to the hard work of Stathis Livathinos and the Board of the National Theater of Greece. Young people are a crucial asset for both the Onassis Foundation and the Onassis Stegi: they are our future. They are our audience today as well as catalysts who can make a meaningful contribution tomorrow, creating a better future for all of us, but most of all for themselves, guided by the lessons and insights they took away from the theater".

The Onassis Foundation supports important dramatic institutions in Greece including the National Theater, the Art Theater (Theatro Technis) (2015-2016), the Theatro Sfendoni (2015-2016), and the Attis Theater (2018). It is delighted, through Onassis Future, to provide Greek artists with the means and the information they need to travel and stock up on the images and performances that will feed into their own future work. (Indeed, Nikos Karathanos and Dimitris Karantzas have each already been on the move for over a year, meeting producers and fellow directors and taking in productions all over the world). And it is delighted to support exhibitions at the Benaki Museum, the Athens Biennial, and the Greek participation at the Venice Biennale. Because we are all part of a shared national endeavor called "Greek culture".