Greek Theatre between Antiquity and Independence

Walter Puchner is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Athens. He has published more than eighty books and about four hundred articles in academic journals. His research interests include the history of theatre in the Balkan peninsula, the comparative folklore and ethnography of the Mediterranean and Southeast Europe, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, as well as the theory of drama and theatre. Andrew Walker White is an American theatre artist, cultural historian, and theatre critic. As a performer his work embraces everything from Shakespeare and Chekhov to dance theatre and mime; he is a former company member of Source Theatre and Théâtre Le Neon, both in the Washington, DC area. As a historian he has devoted himself to post-classical Greek culture, and especially the theatre and drama of Byzantium, and he has translated key Late Antique and medieval Greek texts. He is also the author of Performing Orthodox Ritual in Byzantium (Cambridge, 2015). A veteran of the Fulbright Program, White has conducted research on site in Greece and Turkey, and has lectured in both the United States and Europe.

1. The long twilight of ancient theatre and drama; 2. Byzantium: high culture without theatre or dramatic literature; 3. Re-inventing theatre: Renaissance and Baroque Crete under Venetian rule (1500s–1600s); 4. Shaping a theatre tradition: the Ionian Islands from Venetian to British rule (1500s–1800s); 5. Jesuit theatre in Constantinople and the Archipelago (1600–1750); 6. Drama without performance: the Greek Enlightenment and Phanariot literature; 7. Rehearsing the Revolution: theatre as preparation for the uprising of 1821 (Bucharest, Jassy, Odessa); 8. Outlook: theatre in the nation-state versus theatre in the diaspora.