Yannis Simonides – 50th Reunion Essay

Yannis Simonides

PO Box 274 | 203 West 103rd Street, #6C

New York, NY 10025

Yannis.simonides@gmail.com

+1 914-325-8871; +30 6947-459-262

Spouse(s): 4 marriages, all splendid, 4 divorces, friends for life

Child(ren): Celeste (stepdaughter) 1981; Ion (son) 1992

Grandchild(ren): Sophia & Oliver, (twins, 7 years old in 2018), Lennon (4 years old in 2018)

Education: Athens College ’65, Yale College ’69, Yale School of Drama ’72

Career: Theatre, radio, film, TV actor, director, writer, producer; Professor & Chair of Undergraduate Drama, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU; Executive Director, Hellenic Public Radio, NYC; Founder/Director – Greek Theatre Foundation, dba Ellinikotheatro, 1979–present

Avocations: International dialogue, travel, reading, audio-books, bicycling, gazing at the Acropolis, cooking, poetry, gardening, lovemaking

College: Silliman

I hope my good classmates won’t mind the briefest of essays, because, despite being supposedly a public person—an actor, a performer, a social creature—I am reticent to speak about myself; rather I hope what I have done and continue to do speaks of me in some adequate manner. I’ve come from a poor background but thanks to a valiant single mother and good friends I have been privileged with an excellent education and 17 years of full scholarships and fellowships. I have acted, directed, produced, written, and taught in 30 or so countries; married and divorced countless times, and I’m ever so grateful to the women in my life in that they still honor me with their friendship and companionship. I have an extraordinary stepdaughter and an equally amazing son, three scrumptious grandkids, and a good number of friends and colleagues all over the globe, all my superiors in intellect, emotional wisdom, and generosity of spirit. My years at Yale, undergraduate and graduate, were some of the best in my life and, along with my education in Greece, have granted me the most precious of wisdoms: that I know very little, if not nothing at all. I am very much at peace with my mortality, though I’m passionately in love with life and with its trillions of intensely pleasurable dimensions. I have served as best I could, and I am thankful in the knowledge of my imperfection: I find it more interesting than perfection, and more in tune with the unfathomable timeless universe that enfolds us.