Minos Volanakis initiates the “Giortes ton Vrahon” (Festival of the Rocks)

Minos Volanakis (1925-1999) was a noted Greek theater director and translator. He finished his studies and worked in London and the USA before he returned to Greece in the 1960s. He directed the plays “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett, Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” for the Athens Festival in collaboration with the National Theater of Northern Greece, of which he became the director after the restoration of democracy in 1974. In 1982 he envisioned the transformation of the quarries of Attika to open-air theaters. He visited and reviewed around 45 quarries and chose three in neglected neighborhoods of Athens. Petroupoli in West Attica, (Theater of the Stone), Vyrona in East Attica (Theater of the Rocks-Melina Merkouri), and Nikaia in Piraeus (Katrakeio).