Maria Tsaroucha directs, plays and sings at “The House of Art”
A musical constellation
Maria Tsaroucha is a very talented person who is bursting with energy. She performs with zest and is an exceptional director,actor, singer and dancer who skillfully transforms herself and uses healthy doses of self-deprecating humour from musicals and cabarets, she spent four years studying in New York at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and gained work experience from classical and modern plays. Her current play titled “Mia ypopsia stin skini” is an extension of last spring’s musical at “Polychoros” with her own updated scripts under her direction. Collaborators include actors Grigoris Stamoulis, Despoina Polykandritou, Zacharias Rohas as well as the orchestral musicians Marios Strofalis (piano), Kostas Bazouras (saxophone), Perikles Trivolis (bass), Serafeim Bellos (percussion). The anxiety that new actors feel on their way to an audition, the need to express oneself and be accepted, each person’s uniqueness, the burden of reality, dreams, fears and competition all appear in a lighthearted and comical way in her scripts and are embellished by American songs (jazz and musicals), Abba, Presley, popular traditional Greek music, eclectic songs sung by actors. There are six new songs by Marios Strofalis.
“What matters most to me is the feeling people are left with. An artist must have a healthy ego, be creative, tell the truth and share it with the audience. He /she must do what comes naturally from the soul even if this means making mistakes. This is the only way an artist can really offer anything. This is where we act out life. A game is played with the audience, the actors open up to them, we self-deprecate. There is always something else behind the image, always more to what we see.” Having a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter, a restless Ms Tsaroucha says: “I get the strength I need to go on stage from my children and then when I am on stage I am given the strength to be a good wife and mother”. She herself is the only child of well-known journalist, Kostas Tsarouchas.
A restless director with strong spirit, Maria Tsaroucha is preparing to stage a show during Christmas titled “I tetarti efxi” (the fourth wish). She has also written a fairytale titled “To synefaki pou ithele na ginei anthropos” (the little cloud that wanted to become a person) which is soon to be issued.
Giorgos Vidales
