Генеральный консул Греции поздравил с натурализацией основателя театра «Онейрон» Метаксаса Мастросавваса

The Consul General of Greece for South Australia has hailed the naturalisation of Adelaide theatre-maker Metaxas (Max) Mastrosavvas, who was sworn in as a Greek citizen on August 26, 2026. “It was a great honour for us and for Metaxas (Max) Mastrosavvas that he was sworn in as a Greek citizen,” Alexandra Theodoropoulou, the Consul General said. She described the moment as the culmination of a long journey of contribution to Greek culture and letters. “Founder of the ‘Oneiron’ (‘Dreams’) Theatre, based in Adelaide, Mr Mastrosavvas inspired an entire generation of our fellow Greeks (Omogeneis) to love Greek letters and theatre.” A life in the theatre of dreams Mastrosavvas is recognised as a performing arts practitioner, director, writer, designer and educator whose influence has shaped Greek-Australian cultural life in Adelaide for more than three decades. He is best known as the visionary founder and former artistic director of Theatro Oneiron — meaning “Theatre of Dreams” — the bilingual Greek-Australian theatre company he established in the late 1990s. Performing in both Greek and English, the company built a reputation for gritty, emotionally resonant productions, staging modern Greek theatre by playwrights such as the realist Iakovos Kambanelis and the surrealist Vassilis Ziogas in English translation, alongside English-language theatre performed in Greek. Among the company’s most memorable works were The Courtyard of Miracles, staged at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and exploring the dreams and daily lives of ordinary Greek neighbours; a 1997 staging of Euripides’ Trojan Women, presented in association with the historic Adelaide Glendi Festival; and Cafe Cavafy and Kafe Kavafi, tributes to the sensory world of the great Alexandrian poet C.P. Cavafy. One of the company’s most poignant productions was The Skaubryn Project (1994 and 1998), staged at Adelaide’s historic Theatre 62 and named after the migrant ship that carried thousands of Greeks to Australia in the post-war years — a fitting subject for a company built on honouring the migrant journey. A launchpad for Greek-Australian talent Theatro Oneiron’s legacy extends well beyond its own productions. The company served as a launchpad for a generation of Greek-Australian creatives who went on to shape mainstream Australian stage and screen. Among them is Elena Carapetis, the acclaimed Adelaide-based actress, playwright and director, who began her career as assistant director on The Courtyard of Miracles before going on to write The Gods of Strangers for the State Theatre Company of South Australia and appear in SBS’s The Hunting. Beyond the stage Mastrosavvas’s creative reach has extended well past theatre direction. He is known to cult television audiences for his role in the SBS/ABC retro action-comedy series Danger 5 (2011), and earlier appeared in the Australian film Ebbtide (1994). He remains active in Adelaide’s visual arts scene as an art guide and lecturer with the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), where he leads public talks on significant historical artworks. An educator as much as an artist, Mastrosavvas holds a double major in Drama in Education from the University of South Australia and works within the Department for Education, contributing to the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IBMYP) for Performing and Visual Arts. Language as a bridge, not a barrier At the heart of Theatro Oneiron’s decades of activity was a simple but powerful idea: that language need not be a barrier to storytelling. By moving fluidly between Greek and English, the company gave voice to the hyphenated identity of being Greek-Australian — allowing older generations to see their heritage honoured on stage, while offering younger Omogeneis a creative space to explore their roots within Australia’s broader multicultural landscape. His naturalisation as a Greek citizen this week formalises a bond with Greece that Mastrosavvas has spent a lifetime expressing through art — on stage, on screen, and in the classroom.