Manos Karatzogiannis is an actor, director, writer, acting teacher and artistic director of the Stathmos Theatre. He is an Honors graduate of the Higher School of Dramatic Art of the New Greek Theater Giorgos Armenis. He is preparing his doctoral thesis at the University of Hull on the dramaturgy of Loula Anagnostakis, which is entitled: “The spiritual legacy of Loula Anagnostakis”.
As an actor, he has worked in all kinds of theater: from skit, comedy and children’s theater to repertoire theater, tragedy, theater of silence, but also in works from the global and Greek contemporary dramaturgy.
He has directed for the Athens Festival, the National Theatre, the Art Theatre, the Municipal Regional Theater of Piraeus, the DI.PE.THE of Patras and Agrinio, the Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation, the New Vassilakou Theater and the Station Theatre. He also directed the film Melina Stop Kare – in search of contemporary Greekness as requested by of the National Theatre, the Ministry of Culture and the Melina Merkouri Foundation on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her birth and the film Xenia in fairy tales with Xenia Kalogeropoulou for the Municipal Theater Piraeus. Finally, for radio and ERA, he has directed Vassilis Katsikonouri’s play The Missing and Dimitris Oikonomou’s monologue Fleury’s Song with Tania Tsanaklidou. The performance of “Phaedra” was presented in 2021 in Sweden at one of the largest national theaters in the region, the Östgötateatern.
He has written the book In the City of Loula Anagnostaki (Sokoli Publications), the plays For Eleni (Sokoli Publications), Martyrs of Athens (Sokoli Publications), Guardian of a Revolution (Kappa Publications), Passport as well as the screenplay of the film Melina Stop Kare – in search of contemporary Greekness (Kappa Publications), which were presented in collaboration with important cultural institutions and narrate the main events of modern Greek history: Greek Revolution, Asia Minor Disaster, Occupation, Civil War, Dictatorship, Postcolonization).
Since 2016, he has taught, in various years, at the Higher Schools of Dramatic Art: New Greek Theater of Giorgos Armenis, Mary Vogiatzi Traga, Athenian Stage of Kalvos – Kalaboki, Academy of Arts Ekato as well as at Stelios Krasanakis Institute of Drama Therapy AION.
Since 2017, he has been the artistic director of the Stathmos Theatre, where for the first time plays by well-known Greeks (Lena Kitsopoulou, Alexis Stamatis, Foteini Tsalikoglou, Yiannis Tsiros, etc.) and foreign playwrights (Nina Raine, Martin Sherman, Ornela Vorpsi etc.) have been presented. Over fifty performances and events have been presented in the artistic program of the Stathmos Theater, which received a total of 15 artistic awards and 35 nominations in various categories in the first years of its operation.
Finally, he has been honored with the 1st Audience Award for Best Male Performance for the role of Christopher in Simon Stephens’ play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, ΄3rd Audience Award for Best Male Performance for the role of Billy in Nina Raine’s play Tribes (dir. Takis Tzamargias, Theatro Stathmos 2018 – 2019), Award for best performance at the Sarajevo Winter Theater Festival with the monologue of Claire Lionakis The list directed by Enke Fezollari (2013), Audience Award for the favorite play direction for his direction in the play For Helen (2017), Small Form Playwriting Award for the play Guardian of a Revolution (Analogio International Festival 2021). He has also been distinguished with the Nominations for the award for best performance by a young actor Dimitris Horn in 2015 (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Simon Stephens, directed by Takis Tzamargias – Angelon Vima, Thision Theatre) and in 2010 (A Time in Hell by A. Rimbaud, directed by Thanos Anastopoulos – Neos Kosmos’ Theatre).