Ancient Greek Theatre Research Paper

Drama

Ancient greek theatre

Satyr

Tragedy

Comedy

Theatric culture

Greek gods

Dionysus

Time period??

Amphitheater

Ancient Greek theatre began in 700 BC,. Ancient Greek theatre started with organizing festivals and plays to honor the gods. Of all the gods, Dionysus the god of fertility and wine was honored the most and received a festival in his honor called City Dionysia. This festival took place in Athens, and songs, plays were performed to welcome Dionysus. Athens became the center for the Ancient Greek theatre and Dionysus quickly became known as the god of theatre.

These plays were usually only performed by one person who played multiple rolls and changed his mask to become someone different. Later background actors and the chorus could be found on stage. The chorus consists of 12-50

Comedy in ancient Greek theatre was meant to poke fun at politicians, philosophers and artists. It also showed the Greek society and gave an insight on religion, education, politics and war. The plays contained crude and sexual humor and foul language. The actors and chorus were dressed accordingly to their role. They could be dressed like a knight, horse or women. They didn’t have enough actors, therefore they quickly had to change clothing and wear masks with relatable characters like Hercules or Perseus to change roles.

Tragedy plays were often inspired by Greek mythology and were the mild predecessor of Greek comedy. Greek tragedy dealt with morals like right or wrong and was restricted to having no violence on stage. The tragedy plays were at first only performed by one actor whom wore masks and costumes to imitate gods or other mythological figures. The actor quickly had to change costumes in a small tent to play his next role. In the plays the chorus danced and sang but was not allowed to speak. Later 3 actors were allowed to perform on stage, but they still used their impressive costumes to act as multiple