The Athens & Epidaurus Festival

The Athens & Epidaurus Festival is an annual performing-arts festival founded in 1955. Its summer programme of ancient drama is staged at the ancient theatre of Epidaurus, a fourth-century BC structure in the Argolid. The 2026 cycle opens on Friday 3 July with Aeschylus’s Persians, the oldest surviving Greek tragedy, and closes on 28 and 29 August with Euripides’s Ion. The festival is currently under the artistic direction of Michail Marmarinos.

Productions in the 2026 season include Euripides’s Alcestis on 17 July, directed by Dimitris Karantzas; Sophocles’ Antigone on 7 August, staged by the Norwegian director Alan Lucien Øyen; and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata on 21 August. Performances at Epidaurus are held on Friday and Saturday nights only. The festival runs a parallel programme in Athens at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, which in 2026 holds a final season before closing for restoration.