Venue: National Theatre of Greece
Address: Ag. Konstantinou 22-2410437, Athens, Greece
Town: Athens, GR

The National Theatre of Greece (Greek: Εθνικό Θέατρο, romanized: Ethnikó Théatro) is based in Athens, Greece. The first permanent theatre in modern Greece had been the Boukoura Theatre from 1840, but it had difficulty in managing its operation and stood empty for long periods of time. The National Theatre of Greece was decided to be founded in 1880, with a grant from King George I and Efstratios Rallis to give theatre a permanent home in Athens. The foundations for this new project were laid on Agiou Konstantinou Street and the building itself was designed by the famous Saxonian architect noted for many other public buildings in Athens at the time, Ernst Ziller. Despite problems getting the building done in time, it was eventually completed in the late 1890s and in 1900 it was opened as Royal Theatre. Angelos Vlachos was appointed as the Director. The National Theater began to expand its operations and in 1901 a drama school was opened. The same year, the Royal Theatre opened its doors to the public with a monologue from Dimitris Verardakis' play Maria Dozapatri and two Greek one-act comedies: Dimitris Koromilas' The Death of Pericles and Charalambos Anninos' Servant Required. Following the first performance the theatre began to expand in popularity among Greece's upper and upper middle classes and staged more productions. One of the most famous of the period was Aeschylus' Oresteia, staged in a prose translation by Yorgos Sotiriadis. The production sparked a long linguistic conflict, between the adherents of katharevousa and the modern Demotic Greek. Students from the University of Athens' School of Philosophy, incited by their classicist professor, Yorgos Mistriotis, marched down Agiou Konstantinou in an attempt to halt the performance. The episodes that followed, known as the Oresteiaka, resulted in one death and ten injuries on November 8, 1903. In 1913, upon the assassination of King George, the Royal Theater was bequeathed to his son, Prince Nicholas of Greece