Theatrefestival

Greece is home to some of the world's oldest surviving theatre venues, and its modern festival calendar puts many of them back into use every summer. The flagship is the Athens Epidaurus Festival, founded in 1955, which stages ancient tragedy and comedy at the 4th-century-BC Theatre of Epidaurus alongside a parallel programme at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens. Several regional festivals follow the same pattern of reviving a specific ancient theatre: the Philippi Festival in Kavala (Greece's second-oldest, running since 1957), the Dodoni Festival at the ancient theatre of Dodona in Epirus, the Delphic Festival at the ancient theatre of Delphi (first revived in 1927), the Olympus Festival at the ancient theatre of Dion, and the International Youth Festival of Ancient Drama at the ancient theatre of Messene. Municipal and civic festivals extend the tradition into town centres and modern venues, including the Rethymno Renaissance Festival, the Patras International Festival, the Nafplio and Akronafplia Festivals, Thessaloniki's autumn Dimitria Festival, the Aeschylia Festival in Elefsina (named for the city's native playwright Aeschylus), Xanthi's Old Town Festival, and Kos's Hippocratia Festival.