Arts 4th qtr

• Theater began from myth, ritual, and ceremony. Early society perceived connections between actions performed by groups of people or leaders to a certain society and these actions moved from habit to tradition, to ritual, and to ceremony due to human desire and need for entertainment.
• Theater


  Place of seeing, but it is more than the buildings where performance take place. To produce theater, a playwright writes the scripts, the director rehearses the performers, the designer and technical crew produce props to create the scenes, and the actors and actresses performs on stage, then it will only be a true theater act when audience witnesses it.
• European theater began in Ancient Greece around 700 BC with festivals honoring their gods, particularly Dionysus.
• Theatrical forms in Western classical tradition

  • Romantic Period Theater
  • Medieval Theater
  • Greek Theater
  • Roman theater
  • Renaissance Theater
  • Baroque Theater
  • Neoclassical Theater
• Romantic Period Theater


  • Grandiosity, highly elaborate
• Medieval Theater


  • Morality plays
• Greek Theater


  • Tragedy, Comedy and Satyr
• Roman theater


  • Combats and blood sports
• Renaissance Theater


  • Melodrama and operas
• Baroque Theater


  • Use of technology
• Neoclassical Theater


  • Puppeteers, jugglers, singers
• Western classical opera


  Theatrical form
• Forms of Western theatre

  • Tragedy
  • Comedy
  • Satyr
• How theatrical forms evolved

  1. From myth, ritual, and ceremony

  2. From habit to tradition, to ritual, and to ceremony

  3. Due to human desire and need for entertainment
• Theatrical forms in history

  • Ancient Greek theatre
  • Roman theatre
  • Medieval theatre
  • Renaissance theatre
  • Baroque theatre
  • Neoclassical theatre
  • Romantic theatre
• Theater means "place of seeing", but it is more than the buildings where performance take place
• To produce theater


  1. Playwright writes the scripts

  2. Director rehearses the performers

  3. Designer and technical crew produce props

  4. Actors and actresses perform on stage

  5. Audience witnesses it
• Ancient Greek theatre


  • Began around 700 BC with festivals honoring their gods
  • Consisted of three types of drama: Tragedy, Comedy, Satyr
• Tragedy


  A compound of two Greek words tragos or "goat" and "won" meaning ode or song, dealt with tragic events and have an unhappy ending
• Comedy


  Plays were derived from imitation, Aristophanes wrote most of the comedy plays
• Satyr


  Plays contains comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending, a short, lighthearted tailpiece performed after each trilogy of tragedies
• Ancient Greek theatre building

  • Called Theatron, a large, open-air structures constructed on the sloped of hills and consisted of three main elements: the orchestra, the skene and the audience
• Roman theatre

  • Varied and interesting art forms such as festivals performances of street theater, acrobatics, the staging of comedies of Plautus, and the high-verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca
  • Usual themes were chariots races, gladiators, and public executions
  • Comedy plays were popular and women were allowed to perform
• Triumvir of Pompey


  • One of the first permanent (non wooden) theaters in Rome, whose structure was somewhat similar to the Theatron of Athens, part of a multi-use complex that included a large quadriporticus, directly behind the scaenae fron, and is enclosed by the large columned portricos with an expansive garden complex of fountains and statues
• Medieval theatre


  • Performances were not allowed throughout Europe, minstrels performed in markets, public places and festivals, viewed as dangerous and pagan
• Renaissance theatre


  • Characterized by a return of Classical Greek Roman arts and culture, mystery plays formed a part of religious festivals, morality plays and University drama were formed to recreate Athenian tragedy, public theaters were developed like Commedia dell'arte and elaborate masques
• William Shakespeare


  An English poet, playwright, and actor, regarded as the greatest writer and dramatist in the whole world, often called Engaland's National Poet and the "Bard of Avon"
• Ballet


  A formalized form of dance which originated from Italian Renaissance courts
• Proscenium


  • The area of a theater surrounding the stage opening, arches frame and divide the stage from the audience
• Backdrops


  Popularized by the art of painting clothes
• Commedia dell'arte


  Quick-witted performance of the characters/players
• Baroque theatre


  • Marked by the use technology in current Broadways or commercial plays, the theater crew uses machine for special effects and scene changes, richly decorated, the multiplicity of plot turns and a variety of situations characteristic of Mannerism were succeeded by opera
• Neoclassical theatre


  • Influenced by the styles of Roman and Greek societies, characterized by its grandiosity, costumes and sceneries were highly elaborate, the main concepts were to entertain and to teach lessons, stages were restyled with dramatic arches, lighting and sound effects intensified the mood and message, the concept of decorum was applied, officially established just two types of plays – tragedy and comedy
• Romantic theatre


  • Melodrama and operas became the most popular theatrical forms
• Melodrama


  A dramatic work that puts characters in a lot of danger in order to appeal to the emotions and in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action
• Opera


  An artform in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (liberetto) and musical score, acting, scenery, costumes, and dance were important elements
• The importance of theater in education is...
• Odipus Rex


  Meaning in Latin: Odipus the King, in Greek: Odipus Tyrannos. Play by Sophocles performed between 430-426 BCE, marks the summit of classical Greek drama's formal achievement. Known for its tight construction, mounting tension, and perfect use of dramatic devices of recognition and discovery. Examines the story of Odipus who in attempting to flee from his fate rushes headlong to meet it.
• Sophocles


  • Ancient Greek tragedian, contemporary playwrights were Aeschylus and Euripides. Wrote 123 plays, 7 survive in complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Odipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes, and Odipus at Colonus.
• Characters in Odipus Rex

  • Odipus - King of Thebes
  • Creon - Brother-in-law of Odipus
  • Apollo - God or Oracle of Delphi
  • King Laius - Father of Odipus
  • Jocasta - Wife of Laius and mother of Odipus
  • Antigone and Ismene - Daughters of Odipus