Atlantic City, NJ – Oral histories of life in Asia Minor set to a performance titled, “Stones from God”, was performed throughout the weekend at Stockton University. Pamela Hendrick and Tom Papademetriou from the Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies crafted recorded oral accounts of life in the Ottoman Empire. This special performance was part of the weekend-long Modern Greek Studies Symposium.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ottoman Christian Greek communities were uprooted from various places around the empire and settled in Greece. Their oral histories of life under the Ottoman Empire were recorded in Greece in historical records. Papademetriou, who is the Constantine and Georgian Georgiou Endowed Professor of Greek History, and Director of the Dean C. and Zoe S. Pappas Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies at Stockton has spent years researching and putting all these stories together.
Now, for the first time, his first endeavor has been put together as a playwright titled, Stones from God. “We have about twelve actors that have learned Greek songs, who are speaking actual Greek words from refugees from Asia Minor,” says Papademetriou. “If you ask them, their lives have been changed by that,” he added.
The performance was directed by Martha Frintzila who is from Greece. Martha is a theatre director, actress, and singer from Athens. She previously directed “Courtyard of the Miracles” at Stockton University. She is the director of “Dromos me Dentra” theatre group and the founder of Baumstrasse Studio in Athens. Following a two year correspondence, Frintzila came to Stockton to work on and direct Stones from God this past weekend.