At its meeting on Sunday, July 12, 2026, the Board of Directors of THOK unanimously decided to appoint Marina Maleni Kyriazi to the position of General Director of the Cyprus Theater Organization, a position that had been advertised in February 2026. The position encompasses the duties of both an executive and an artistic director, and the appointment will take effect once it is ratified by the Council of Ministers and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic.

Furthermore, the Board of Directors, at its meeting on July 15, 2026, decided to offer the Theater Development Officer an interim appointment to the position of General Director until the appointment process is completed.

Biographical Note on Marina Maleni Kyriazi

Education: University of Texas (Austin), Theater and Sociology (twice awarded a scholarship by the Department of Theater and the Department of Turkish Language). Cyprus Open University, Master’s program in Communication and Journalism.

Upon returning to Cyprus, she joined the founding team of producers for RIK’s Third Program. Until 2002, she worked with RIK as a producer of entertainment and news programs for radio and television, a host of major special events, and an actress. More recently, she collaborated with RIK as the host of the weekly cultural television talk show *Art Cafe*, as part of the THOK-RIK partnership, from 2017 to 2023.

At the Cyprus Theater Organization, she initially worked as an actress for six years and later, starting in 2001, she joined its administrative staff as a Theater Development Officer, with primary responsibilities including theater grants, international exchanges and collaborations, playwriting development, educational programs, and amateur theater for children and adults. Today, she heads THOK’s Coordination Team and serves as Secretary of the organization’s Board of Directors.

She has worked on issues related to cultural policy formulation, European collaborations, the development of playwriting, professional and amateur theater, theater in education, and festival organization, and has curated Cyprus’s national entries for the Prague Quadrennial since 2007, at which Cyprus won the top Golden Triga award in 2023.

She actively participated in the THOK-Ministry of Education Special Committee on Theater in Secondary Education, served as a member of the Study Committee for the establishment of a Unified Cultural Body and of the National Committee for the Delphic Games; he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Cyprus Theater Museum, an honorary member of the Cyprus Center for Set Designers, Architects, and Theater Technicians, and the Interdepartmental Advisory Committee of ONEK, an honorary member of the Board of Directors of the Assitej Cyprus Center for Theater for Children and Young People, a member of the Advisory Board of World Stage Design 2025, and more. He designed and coordinated several of THOK’s participations in the Culture Program.

In November 2023, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the pan-European European Theatre Convention.