The creative contact of the Shadow Theatre with the “live” theatre had already begun in the early 20th century through folk theatrical forms like revue, satirical drama, the so-called comeidilio and dramatical romance.
In the 50s, this creative presence of the Shadow Theatre went on with the Greek Ballet of Rallou Manou (1951) who recruited Evgenios Spatharis for the play “The Cursed Snake”, that Sofia Vembo would stage again four years later. Furthermore, the participation of E. Spatharis in the staging of plays of famous authors (Kambanelis, Skourtis, Rotas, etc) and his personal contribution as a screenwriter and director in other, facilitated the introduction of scripts and themes of the Shadow Theatre into the “live” theatre, where for more than half a century inspired:
a) Famous (but also less famous) theatrical companies, theatrical formations and organisations: Marika Kotopouli, National Theatre of Northern Greece, New Greek Scene, OPENART, “OMMA Studio” and regional theatres (Dipethe in Greek). Several theatrical formations, like Takis Vamvakidis' “The Barefoot Order”, became widely known in Greece by staging, for many years, plays from Karagkiosis' traditional play-writing and approaching in season socio-political topics and concerns.
b) Directors: Karolos Koun, Sokratis Karantinos, Thymios Karakatsanis, Kostas Kazakos, Giorgos Karydas, Memi Spyratou, Mihalis Sdougkos and many others.
c) Famous actors: Tzeni Karezi, Kostas Kazakos and Dionysis Papagiannopoulos, Alberto Skenazy, Nikos Kalogeropoulos, Takis Vamvakidis, Christos Syrmakezis, Stelios Amanatidis and Monika Aivazoglou. Nevertheless, many others were also given the opportunity to become known to the Greek audience.
d) Authors: Iakovos Kambanelis, Fotos Politis, Giorgos Themelis, Giorgos Skourtis, Vasilis Rotas, Apostolos Doxiadis, Giannis Kakoulidis etc.
e) Musicians, who composed important pieces for Karagkiosis themed plays: Manos Hatzidakis, S. Kraounakis, Kyriakos Kosteas, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Stelios Magkafourakis.
f) Various Karagkiosopektes, who had the opportunity to experiment with new forms of theatrical production.
The objective of this program is the localization of all those plays and representations and their listing in the specially created bulletins.
