Over the last few years we have been actively engaged in producing devised and performance pieces, trying to develop our own individual method – a method which mainly aims at creating images rather than words. We have been moving away from traditional theatre, maintaining that the clear distinction between the audience and the actor hinders the growth of the feeling that we all belong to a community and we are all troubled by the same worries.
We do not wish to keep the spectator in the dark, we do not expect him to totally forget himself and immerse in the world of fiction. We do not want the spectator to lose sense of time and place. On stage, the actor plays a role, or multiple ones, without losing his identity. At the same time, the spectator, through his emotional participation, remains fully conscious of his being actively in communion with the event.
Our history
NOITI GRAMMI was founded in 1999 by director/actress Olga Pozeli.
Its first production was the double-bill Her big chance by Alan Bennett and A sermon by David Mamet (Technohoros Ypo Skian, May 1999).
It was followed by Do you love me? which was based on the life and work of the famous psychiatrist R. D. Laing (National Theatre of Greece, Experimental Stage, June 2001, & FOURNOS Theatre, October - December 2001).
In 2003 NOITI GRAMMI staged Kvetch by Steven Berkoff and in 2004 The Bird of Pleasure, a performance based on Peter’s Carey short story, Exotic Pleasures.
In October 2007 NOITI GRAMMI created Is everything I have ever forgotten as big as a house?, a devised piece inspired by the installation Questions by Peter Fischli and David Weiss at ARGO Studio.
In 2008-9 NOITI GRAMMI created another devised piece, Never take the stairs, exploring the flighty topic of coincidences.
In 2010, NOITI GRAMMI mounted a performance inspired by an Ilya Kabakov installation, Don't judge a man by his tail, at FOURNOS Theatre. The show was also performed at Fadjr International Theatre Festival (Tehran, Iran, 14-15/2/2011).
In 2012-13 NOITI GRAMMI attempted its first devised monodrama, inspired by a true and painful real life event, When the red Toyota went off the road and sank in black water. The show successfully toured in festivals all over the world: Fundamental Monodrama Festival (Luxembourg, 27/6-7/7/2012), Global Forum of the Arts - To the Stars (Varna, Bulgaria, 1-7/8/2012), Between the Seas Festival of Mediterranean Performing Arts (New York, USA, 20-26/8/2012), Atspindys International Festival of Monoperformances (Visaginas, Lithuania, 10-13/10/2012), Thespis International Monodrama Festival (Kiel, Germany, 9-16/9/2012), International Festival of Monoperformances Vidlunnja (Kiev, Ukraine, 12-17/7/2013).
In 2014 NOITI GRAMMI and the Fundamental Monodrama Festival co-produced the Luxembourg première of I remember, a performance/installation inspired by Joe Brainard's book on his memories of growing up. The show was also presented at Face to Face Festival (Lost Theatre, London, 13/7/2014), DIMITRIA Festival (Thessaloniki, 4-5/10/2014) and the International Experimental Theatre Festival 2016 (Hanoi, Vietnam, 17/11/2016).
NOITI GRAMMI is in the league of avant-garde theatre groups in Athens, one of the first to create Devised Theatre and it is funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture since 2001, the J F. Costopoulos Foundation (ALPHA Bank), and the Hellenic Actors Association.
Do you Love me? was nominated for two awards, at the Athinorama awards ceremony and Kvetch for six awards including best performance and best director. Olga Pozeli was nominated for the most promising newcomer in the theatre scene at the Critics Association Awards in 2001. Finally, the International Festival of Monoperformances Vidlunnja awarded Olga Pozeli the Festival Directors’ Award for the production When the red Toyota went off the road and sank in black water.
Olga Pozeli
Olga Pozeli took her BA in English Literature at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki (Greece) while training as an actress at Roula Pateraki’s Drama School. She then moved to London where, on a British Council scholarship, she took her MA in Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, with a major in Directing.
While in London she worked as an actress and attended seminars at the British Theatre Association, on a British Council grant. She also conducted a research on the work of four promising young theatre directors, on an Academy of Athens scholarship. On her return to Greece she formed a theatre company, NOITI GRAMMI, the productions of which she directs ever since. NOITI GRAMMI has put on plays by Alan Bennett (Her big chance), David Mamet (A sermon) and Steven Berkoff (Kvetch), among others, and has also produced four pieces of devised theatre: Do you love me? a play based on the life and works of psychiatrist R. D. Laing, The bird of pleasure, a play inspired by one of Peter Carey’s short stories, Is everything I have ever forgotten as big as a house?, a performance inspired by an installation by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Never take the stairs, a show dealing with the flighty topic of coincidences, Don’t judge a man by his tail, a performance inspired by an installation by Ilya Kabakov, When the red Toyota went off the road and sank in black water, a devised monodrama inspired by a true and painful real life event, and, finally, I remember, a performance/installation inspired by Joe Brainard's book on his memories of growing up.
Olga has been nominated for two awards (one by the Theatre Critics Association and the other by a prominent magazine, Athinorama) for her works Do you love me? and Kvetch. In 2012, the International Festival of Monoperformances Vidlunnja awarded her the Festival Directors’ Award for the production When the red Toyota went off the road and sank in black water. In November 2016, the International Exprerimental Theatre Festival held in Hanoi, Vietnam awarded her the Award for Experimental Innovation for the production I remember.
She also directed Play by Samuel Beckett, at the Beckett Festival in Athens in 2004 and the Wizard of Oz at a State Theatre in Northern Greece.
Since 2008, Olga Pozeli is the Secretary of the International Monodrama Forum of the International Theatre Institute (ITI), while at the same time she acts as an advisor for Fujairah International Monodrama Festival (UAE). From 2004 to 2011, she taught Theatre Direction in the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Patras. She leeds the European Theatre Project PEEP at Moraitis School.
