More than 300,000 euros, according to the artistic director of the State Theater of Northern Greece, Asterios Peltekis, will be the financial impact on the organization’s coffers as a result of the occupation of the Royal Theater for about a month by art school students protesting against presidential decree 85/2022. .

“The cost is huge,” says Mr. Peltekis, and continues: “The amount is calculated without taking into account lost profits. Because many people hear that there is an occupation, but they do not go into details, for example, that it takes place only at the Royal Theater, and the rest of our stages are working as usual. So we reduced the traffic.”

As the artistic director explains, the search for “free” dates at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall to play a few KTHBE performances there was not successful due to the planning of the hall. However, no sponsors were harmed, and the occupied building was not damaged. “They were very careful,” Mr. Peltekis says of the students he regularly consults with.

The final instruction from the artistic director was for the students to reconsider continuing the occupation, given the overall dire situation following the Tempe accident, as well as the blow the theater is taking while it remains closed. In this light, the possibility of ending the occupation does not seem far off. As Yannis Rigas, Director of Education for the also occupied Drama School KTHBE, says, “The children at the school realized that something terrible had happened and lost their initial interest.”

A similar climate seems to prevail at the National Theatre’s Drama School, where participation has reportedly begun to dwindle due to fatigue. The stages of the National Theater also remain completely filled for a month. “We have five tents that are not working. You understand what this means for income,” says Vassilis Poulantsas, chairman of the theater’s board of directors, who also suggested that the participants in the occupation leave, taking into account the general spirit of the times. As he explains, some of the organization’s rehearsals take place elsewhere, but it goes so far as to ask the troupe to continue on a suitable theater stage. However, according to Mr. Poulantsas, the Ethnico premises were not damaged. The National Union of Theater Workers also met with the students who occupied the Chiller Building the day before yesterday. According to union president Makis Spetsieris, the students recognized that the occupation was costly to the organization’s activities, while the proposal he made was to allow the tents to open while continuing to communicate their demands to the public. from certain points of buildings.

Finally, in the also occupied Olympia, the Maria Callas Municipal Theater, according to information, other venues are being sought for the production of the opera Iphigenia in Taurua, which is scheduled to premiere on March 17.