“Spyridon Peresiadis” Playwriting Awards 2025

Patras, Greece — The Golfo Festival and the Theatre Laboratory of Drama and Speech of the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Patras, with the support of the Ionannis & Efterpi Topali Cultural Foundation, proudly announce the winners of the inaugural nationwide playwriting competition dedicated to Achaean playwright Spyridon Peresiadis.

Launched for the first time in 2025, the awards aim to celebrate and promote contemporary Greek dramaturgy, while honoring the literary legacy of the author of Golfo.

Following a thorough review of fifty-five submissions, the judging committee praised the originality, theatrical craftsmanship, and poetic voicefound across the entries. Guided by criteria including the development of theatrical language, relevance to the competition’s theme, and imaginative storytelling, the panel selected five exceptional works.

Award - Winning Productions

The three winning plays will be staged by graduates of the National Theatre’s Directing School and brought to life by a new generation of actors from drama schools such as the National Theatre, the Athens Conservatoire, the Delos – Demetra Hatoupi, and the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Patras.

In addition, the two plays receiving Honourable Mentions — Helmos 207 by Giannis Asdrachas and Would You Kill Yourself for Me? by Georgia Stefanopoulou — will be presented as staged readings.

Audiences in Patras and Athens will have the chance to enjoy all five selected works in January 2026.

Awards Ceremony

The official award ceremony has been held in Mesorrougi, the birthplace of Peresiadis, as part of the 2nd Tribute to the author of the play Golfo, on Saturday, September 6, 2025.

AWARDS

First Prize – “Spyridon Peresiadis” Playwriting Awards 2025 (jointly awarded)

• Golf-ω— Meropi Papastergiou
• Lost Sheep in a Foreign Fold — Mavra Kazaki

Second Prize – “Spyridon Peresiadis” Playwriting Awards 2025

• Three on Wrought Iron — Konstantinos Lakis

Honourable Mentions – “Spyridon Peresiadis” Playwriting Awards 2025

• Helmos 207 — Giannis Asdrachas
• Would You Kill Yourself for Me? — Georgia Stefanopoulou

Judging Panel

• Akis Dimou — Playwright
• Giannis Kalatzopoulos — Actor & Director
• Lina Rozi — Associate Professor, Department of Theatre Studies, University of Patras.

BIOGRAPHIES OF AWARD RECIPIENTS

MEROPI PAPASTERGIOU

Meropi Papastergiou has been living and working in Athens since 2016 as an entrepreneur, actress, and translator. She graduated with honors in 2015 from Vassar College in the U.S. with a B.A. (hons) in Drama and Gender Studies. Since 2014, she has collaborated artistically with the One Year Lease Theater Company, based in New York, as a language specialist in their annual residency program held in Japan, India, and Papigo, where she developed her own method of teaching the Greek language to American theater students with the aim of performance. She has also worked as a copywriter and P.R. Associate at the online cinema platform Cinobo. She recently graduated with distinction from the M.A. program Creative Writing, Theatre, and Cultural Industries at the Department of Theatre Studies, University of the Peloponnese. As a playwright, her texts have been presented at Ataka Festival 2025 at the Kypseli Municipal Market, at the Greek Art Theatre’s initiative Connecting Theatre Creators, as well as at the Light the City project of the Municipal Theatre of Piraeus.

MAVRA KAZAKI

Mavra Kazaki was born in Thessaloniki in 2001. She graduated from the Department of Performing and Digital Arts of the School of Fine Arts at the University of the Peloponnese. At the same School, she completed her postgraduate studies in Creative Writing. She has worked as a costume and set designer for the theatre. Her first play, titled You Can’t Buy a Smart Car and Turn It Into a Bus, was presented in 2024 in a staged reading at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation as part of her postgraduate program. Her theatrical monologue Carnivorous Plants – Vegetarian Humans is expected to be staged at the Municipal Theatre of Piraeus and at the Analogio Festival in September 2025. She now lives in Athens.

KONSTANTINOS LAKIS

Konstantinos Lakis works professionally in graphic design, painting, stage design, and writing. He has held 20 solo and 11 group painting exhibitions. His play Metaxia won 3rd prize in the “New Greek Play” competition in 2018 at Theatro apo Koinou. His short story August Lombark was awarded and published in the anthology Antitheseis (IANOS 2019). His plays Mr. Rem and Metaxia were staged in 2019 and 2021 at ISON Theatre by THEAMA (Theatre of Disabled Artists). In 2021, he wrote the play Margiola for the Preveza Theatrical Workshop, staged at the Roman Odeon of Nikopolis and the ancient Necromanteion of Acheron. In 2022, his play The Behtsis / The Night Watchman won 1st prize in the competition Theatre at the Museum / Stories of Migration under the auspices of the Municipality of Athens and the Industrial Gas Museum. In 2023, for the Preveza Theatrical Workshop, he designed costumes and sets for The Chasm of Kassopi by Frederic Lenormand, at the modern-day reopening of the ancient theatre of Kassopi.

GEORGIA STEFANOPOULOU

GIANNIS ASDRACHAS

Giannis Asdrachas was born in Lefkada. He is a journalist — a member of ESIEA (Union of Journalists of Athens Daily Newspapers) since 2007 — and for twenty years he worked in cultural reporting in the daily press, from the pages of Avgi to those of Express, documenting theatre, literature, visual arts, and cinema. He has collaborated with cultural institutions, most notably with Art Athina. He has also worked in press offices of ministries, the Hellenic Parliament, the Municipality of Haidari, and for art exhibitions. He has curated publications, including biographies and art albums. He travels, converses, takes notes; he calls himself a collector of stories that eventually find their way onto paper.