NEW YORK – Filiki Eteria: The Brotherhood behind the Revolution is an original play by Ioli Andreadi and Aris Asproulis, directed by Andreadi, and based on research by the two prolific writers and researchers. In their 12th play, Andreadi and Asproulis combine historical events and fiction, tracing the secret history of the artists and intellectuals that inspired the European revolutions of the 19th century, from their crazy and passionate visions of national independence to their personal betrayals.

The Tank Theatre presents Filiki Eteria as their next mainstage production, running April 21-23 in their Proscenium Theater, 312 West 36th Street in Manhattan.

The performance schedule for Filiki Eteria is Thursday, April 21, Friday, April 22 ,and Saturday, April 23, 7 PM. The show is presented in Greek with surtitles in English.

The cast includes Miltiadis Fiorentzis, Nikolaos Karagkiaouris, Despoina Sarafeidou, and Vasiliki Troufakou. Filiki Eteria features set and costume design by Dimitra Liakoura and assistant direction by Penelope Aslanoglou. Lighting Designer is Stevi Koutsothanassi and Orestis Tatsis is the production manager. The presentation of the show in New York is supported by the Attica Region.

More information and tickets available online: https://thetanknyc.org/filiki-eteria.

Filiki Eteria was created for the Cultural Foundation of Piraeus Group (PIOP) in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution and was previously presented in the summer of 2021 with great success at the nine Museums of the PIOP Network, at the Historical Archive of PIOP, the Aeschylia Festival, and the historic Skopeftirio in Kaissariani, receiving a warm reaction from the 2,000 and more audience members who attended.

The text of the play was published by the Cultural Foundation of Piraeus Group and by Kapa Publishing House in 2021, with an introduction by University of Athens Theatre Studies Department Professor Gregory Ioannides. In his introduction, Prof. Ioannides writes:

“The in-depth research and the manic immersion of the two writers, Ioli Andreadi and Aris Asproulis, into the texts, the correspondence, and the long bibliography of the Revolution, did not bring to light just the life of the four heroes but also something deeper, purer, and more essential, something that does not concern just them but could be spread to all the other warriors, until it can decipher the mysterious center of the Revolution. What is that? It is the ‘Sacred Love,’ a notion of romantic ‘enorasis’ taken at first from Alexander Ypsilantis, that runs through all the initiates of the Cause. Especially to the two writers we owe the emergence of this inconceivable idea from the spiritual basements of our history to the surface of our theatrical life.”

The Filiki Eteria was the historic secret brotherhood founded by Greeks in Odessa, now in Ukraine, with the aim of spreading the ideas of freedom and preparing for the Greek Revolution, which is one of the most important and influential European Revolutions of the 19th century.

Ioli Andreadi, theatre and performance director, playwright, earned her doctorate at King’s College, London. Aris Asproulis, playwright and Director of Communication & Publicity of the historic Art Theater Karolos Koun, earned his doctorate in Sociology at Panteion University. They have co-authored 13 theatrical texts (original and adaptations) from 2015 until today, which have been staged in Greece, New York, and London, directed by Andreadi and having received excellent reviews. Andreadi and Asproulis specialize in creating original theatrical works based on the study of real events, through research of primary archival material, documents and publications, interviews, books, and field work. They also share a deep interest in the Classics (literature, theatre, art), having adapted for the stage a three-hour version of Tolstoy’s War and Peace and a two-hour version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Their works also include three new plays on the life and work of Antonin Artaud: Artaud/Van Gogh, The Cenci Family, and Bone. All their plays have been published by Kapa Publishing House.

Since 2003, Andreadi has worked as a theatre director and playwright in Greece and abroad (UK, New York, Berlin, Rome). She studied Directing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2007-08. Her PhD in Theatre, Performance and Ritual at King’s College London was conducted with the support of the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation and was subsequently published in English in 2020 by Kapa Publishing House under the title: Anastenaria: Ritual, Theatre, Performance; An Experiential Study. She is a 2010/11 Fulbright Artist/Arts Scholar, having conducted her research on musical theatre and ancient tragedy in NY (NYMF). She is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab as a Stavros Niarchos Foundation grantee. Her ongoing postdoctoral research on Antonin Artaud and Neuroscience (2015-today) is soon to be published. Since 2006, Asproulis has worked as a publicist of both major and experimental theatre and cultural events, national and international, in Greece.

They also both teach. Andreadi is teaching Performance: Theory and Practice (her book Performance: Theory and Practice; Directing, Philosophy and Culture was published in 2020) as a Guest Lecturer at Universities in Greece and abroad (University of Athens, University of Cyprus, King’s College London, Brooklyn College CUNY, University of Greenwich UK). Asproulis is teaching Sociology as a Guest Lecturer in Greece and abroad (Panteion University, University of Durham) and Communication and Publicity at Artens Seminars.