History of Theatre

Greek Theatre

Theatre goes back a long way, since the classical Athens in the 6th century BC. Since then, many cultures have taken theatre, and made their own traditions with it.

Greek Theatre developed mostly in Athens, it's the root of the Western civilization, (theatre is originally a Greek word). It was a part of the broader culture of theatre and performance in classical Greece that included festivals, religious rituals, politics, law, athletics, and music, poetry, weddings and funerals, and symposia. Participation in the city-states' many festivals—and attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member, (or even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in particular was a very important part of the citizenship. The theatre in Ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr-play.

Athenian Tragedy is the oldest form of tragedy it's a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of theatrical culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century, BC, it flowered during the 5th century BC, (from the end of which it began to spread throughout the Greek world.) it remained to be popular until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. No tragedies from the 6th century survived, but thirty-two of the thousands of tragedies of the 5th century have survived.

The origins of tragedy remained obscure, though by the 5th century, it was institutionalised, (meaning stable, valued or recurring patterns of behavior.) in competitions, held as part of festivals celebrating Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility. (fertility, meaning the ability to conceive children.) Contestants in the city Dionysia's competition, (the most prestigious of festivals in stage drama), playwrights, (people who wrote plays), were required to present a tetralogy of plays, (not necessarily connected by story or theme) a tetralogy requires three tragedies, and a Satyr Play. The performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records begin from 501 BC, (when the Satyr plays were introduced.) Most Athenian tragedies dramatize events from Greek mythology.

Athenian Comedy is generally believed to be divided into three periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle Comedy", and "New Comedy". Old Comedy as still survived today, while Middle Comedy is very largely lost, (preserved only in short fragments). New comedy is known from fragments of plays by 'Menander'. Aristotle defined comedy as "a representation of laughable people that involves some kind of error or ugliness that does not cause pain or destruction."

A/N References, Wikipedia.  

This is a project for a class, but it's interesting so I'm posting it here.