"Room Service" by John Murray and Allen Boretz

Acclaimed as a director for both stage and screen, the 37-year-old Ektoras Lygizos made his theater debut with the work “The Drowned World” by Gary Owen (Amore Theater, 2005). This was followed by another ten stage works, including: “Savage or The Man with the Sad Eyes” by Klaus Händl (Amore Theater, 2007), “The Walworth Farce” by Enda Walsh (Apo Michanis / Ex Machina Theater, 2008), Verdi’s “Trovatore” (Bios, 2008) and, most recently, Euripides’ “Bacchae” (Neos Kosmos Theater, 2013). This year, he’s directing “The Plant Carer” by Pavlos Matesis at the Greek National Theater.

Lygizos made his film debut in 2002 with the short “Interior with Woman Peeling Apples (Details)”, which won a Greek State Film Award. In 2004, his second short “Pure Youth” screened in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

His first feature film “Boy Eating the Bird’s Food” (2012), which was loosely based on Knut Hamsun’s novel “Hunger”, triumphed at the Hellenic Academy Film Awards in 2013, and was also honored at a series of major international festivals. The film’s award-winning lead, Yiannis Papadopoulos, also appears in “Room Service”.

“Room Service” was written at a time when theater played an almost consolatory role in the lives of interwar audiences, whose finances – and morale – had been crushed. The comic trials and tribulations of a broke Broadway producer, and its non-stop action meant the play was both a success in its day, and also withstood the test of time.