Awarding young talent
Evi Saoulidou and Yiannos Perlegas were thrilled to receive respectively the Melina Mercouri and Dimitris Horn theater awards at a ceremony which took place recently at the Horn Theater. It was hosted by actor and director Stamatis Fassoulis, who established the Horn Award for young male actors seven years ago. For the first time this year, the Melina Mercouri Award was handed out to a young female actress, in collaboration with the Mercouri Foundation. Saoulidou, 30, has fought her own battles to be able to live by her profession. «I have done a lot of different things in the theater and have also had other jobs in between, like waitressing,» she said. Her big breakthrough came with her part in Giorgos Dialegmenos’s «Bella Venezia» as well as the part of Ismene in Sophocles’ «Antigone» last summer. Both productions were directed by Lefteris Vogiatzis. She sees the award as recognition of her efforts over the past eight years, since graduating from the school of the National Theater of Northern Greece. «I am not bitter, but I wish we could give a real chance to theater and to young people in this country.» Saoulidou was born in Kavala and made her debut with the Municipal Regional Theater of Kavala in Alekos Sakellarios’s play «Manolakis the Bomber.» After moving to Athens, she worked with the National Theater Experimental Stage (in Shakespeare’s «As You Like It,» directed by Nikos Kornilios), participated in the Municipal Regional Theater of Patras’s tribute to Mikis Theodorakis in 2000, continued with Elena Akrita’s «Astronaut’s Diet» the following winter and then was part of the chorus of the «Oresteia,» directed by Yiannis Kokkos for the National Theater. She spent a year at the Acting and Directing Workshop with Stathis Livathinos and then took part in various National Theater productions, including Vassilis Katsikonouris’s «California Dreamin.» Her film credits include a part in Pantelis Voulgaris’s «Brides.» Yiannos Perlegas had not dreamed of becoming an actor. The son of actor Timos Perlegas and journalist Aristoula Ellinoudi, the 26-year-old was first moved by music. He studied piano, bouzouki and guitar. He then turned his hand to stage directing and enrolled at the National Theater Drama School. Before he even finished, Vogiatzis recruited him for a two-year run in Sarah Kane’s «Cleansed.» He went on to perform at the Amore Theater and with Dimitris Papaioannou’s Omada Edafous dance ensemble. He has worked with the National Theater of Northern Greece and Victor Ardittis, with Vangelis Theodoropoulos and with Nikos Mastorakis in «Milk.»
