The Philosophy Plays project founded by Edward H Spence started at Steki Taverna in 1997 (a Greek Restaurant in Sydney, close to the University of Sydney) in 1997.

​

The Philosophy Plays project was founded by Edward H Spence in 1997 as a Way of Life and a form of communal therapy for the mind. The object of the Philosophy Plays is to introduce philosophy to the general public through philosophical presentations by professional philosophers incorporating drama. This has created a public domain of philosophy where relevant issues and topics of public interest and importance, such as love, immortality, happiness, friendship, religion, knowledge, trust, pets, morality, technology, and corruption can be presented by professional philosophers and discussed in an open forum with members of the general public. 

 

The Philosophy Plays, like Platonic dialogues, seek to engage their audiences both intellectually (primarily through a philosophical talk) and emotionally (primarily through drama) in a realistic and shared lived experience thus rendering philosophy a practical and meaningful activity for all participants, conceived as a way of life.   

 

The Philosophy Plays have been performed at restaurants and other venues accessible to the public such as theatres in the form and style of a Platonic symposium. They comprise three interrelated components: A talk by a professional philosopher, A play performed by actors that dramatically illustrates some of the ideas in philosophical talk, and audience participation through discussion of the presentation and performance. The drama component in the Philosophy Plays is either adapted from existing plays or philosophical dialogues or created and written specifically by the philosopher presenters themselves. 

 

The restaurant setting provides a popular and relaxed forum where people from different backgrounds and different levels of philosophical sophistication and education can come together to discuss various philosophical issues. This is the setting familiar in Plato’s Symposium, and it is the setting that inspired the structure of the philosophy play presentations. The banquet and the wine are grist to the mill of philosophical discussion. They create a convivial atmosphere where the audience and the performers come together in friendship, to engage actively in a liberating and lively philosophical exchange. Interestingly, the word "restaurant" is derived from the word "restore". One could say that doing philosophy in a restaurant restores both the mind and the body by providing food for thought. 

 

The Philosophy Plays aim to be at once entertaining and informative but most importantly, transformative. For it is only through a personal and authentic transformation that philosophy as the examined life can be conceived as practical wisdom and become a way of life, a "βίου τέχνη" or the art of life, that leads to a flourishing and fulfilling life, as conceived by Plato and Aristotle and later, the Hellenic philosophers such as the Cynics, the Stoics,  and the Epicureans. 

​