THE TYPISTS

The Typists
by Murray Schisgal
directed by Nagia Mitsakou

A masterpiece of American theatre.

For the first time in Greece, the one-act play The Typists by the award-winning American playwright Murray Schisgal will be presented starting April 4, 2026, every Saturday and Sunday.

The typists of the 1960s—with their fears, inhibitions, desires, and dreams—feel almost paradoxically familiar. Typewriters may have been replaced by computers, rotary phones by mobile devices, and mail-order catalogues by online shopping. Yet our needs, fears, desires, and the time that relentlessly pursues us remain unchanged.

Through what appears to be a simple snapshot of everyday life between two typical New Yorkers of his time, Schisgal manages to condense an entire lifetime into a single eight-hour workday. An eight-hour span that transcends the limits of space and time within the play and expands into the very fabric of human experience.

The Typists, one of the most striking one-act plays of modern dramaturgy, was first presented Off-Broadway in 1963, starring Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, and won the Drama Desk Award. Murray Schisgal became widely known both for his play Luv (1964) and as the screenwriter of the film success Tootsie (1982), starring Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange.

About the Play

When Paul Cunningham arrives on his first day at a new job in a mail-order company, he makes it clear to his colleague Sylvia Peyton that his presence there will be temporary. Paul studies law in the evenings and, with an already established lawyer uncle, his future appears promising.

Sylvia, the head of the department, welcomes him warmly. She too has her own dreams—primarily of an emotional nature. A particular relationship begins to develop between the two colleagues, as Paul’s “temporary” stay in the office keeps extending.

Weeks turn into months, months into years, and years into decades. Paul and Sylvia grow older together, sharing small everyday conversations about life outside the office and about the big things that—someday—the future might hold for them. When, now aged, they say their final “goodnight” to their unseen employer, we realize we have witnessed an entire life cycle filled with thwarted desires and unfulfilled dreams. A life seen through humor, sadness, illusions, and compromises that run through human existence.

Paul and Sylvia are potentially free individuals—like all of us. In a tragicomic way, we watch their desires and dreams being suffocated by their own fear. A fear that becomes a chain, restraining, limiting, and ultimately subduing them.

This potentially free human being is none other than each one of us.

Duration: 70 minutes
Suitable for ages: 12+