Theatre arts

• Theater

  Place of seeing
• Producing theater

  1. Playwright writes scripts

  2. Director rehearses performers

  3. Designer and technical crew produce props

  4. Actors and actresses perform on stage

  5. Audience witnesses it
• 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
• The repeated rehearsals, performances, and creation of different actions broke the ground for theater
• Ancient Greek theater

  • Began around 700 B.C.
  • Centered in the city-state of Athens
  • Included tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays
• Tragedy

  A compound of two Greek words, tragos or "goat" and "won" (ode) meaning "song," referring to goats sacrificed to Dionysus before performances, or to goat-skins worn by the performers
• Greek tragedy

  • Dealt with tragic events and have an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character
  • Thespis was the first actor and introduced the use of masks, called the "Father of Tragedy"
  • Only three actors were allowed to perform in each play, so the chorus played an active part
• Greek comedy

  • Derived from imitation, with no traces of their origin
  • Aristophanes wrote most of the comedy plays, including the humorous tale Lysistrata
  • Cyclops was an adventurous comedy by Euripides
• Greek satyr play

  • Contains comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending
  • Featured choruses of satyrs, based on Greek mythology, with pretended drunkenness, bold sexuality, tricks, and sight jokes
• Theatron


  Theatre buildings
• Orchestra


  Large circular or rectangular area at the center part of the theatre, where the play, dance, religious rites, and acting took place
• Parodos


  Side entrance
• Roman theater started in the 3rd century BC and had varied art forms such as festival performances of street theatre, acrobatics, the staging of comedies of Plautus, and the high-verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca
• The Etruscan actors in the 4th century BC were the first experienced theater actors, and Roman drama began with the plays of Livius Andronicus in 240 BC
• By the mid 4th century AD, 102 out of 176 ludi publici were dedicated to theater, aside a considerably lower number of gladiator and chariot racing events
• Roman theater


  • Themes included chariots races, gladiators, and public executions
  • Comedy plays were popular from 350 to 250 B.C. and women were allowed to perform on stage
• During the Medieval era, theater performances were not allowed throughout Europe, so minstrels performed in markets, public places, and festivals
• Churches in Europe started staging their own theater performances during Easter Sundays with biblical stories and events, and some plays were eventually brought outside the church
• Over the centuries, the plays revolved around biblical themes from the Story of the Creation to the Last Judgment
• Renaissance theater


  • Characterized by a return of Classical Greek and Roman arts and culture
  • Included Commedia dell'arte, Knight Masque, mystery plays, morality plays, and university drama
• Queen Elizabeth I was one of the most prominent supporters of the theater, and companies of players performed seasonally in many places
• William Shakespeare


  • Regarded as the greatest writer and dramatist in the whole world
  • Wrote about 38 plays, including well-loved works like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Midsummer Night's Dream
• Other contemporary playwrights included Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd
• Shakespeare's history plays depicted English or European history, while his comedies dealt with life in London after the fashion of Roman New Comedy
• For the first time, ballet was performed in public during the Renaissance period, originating from the Italian Renaissance courts
• This image is in the public domain; PD-ART; This image is in the public domain due to its age; PD-OLD-100
• Shakespeare's plays


  • Depicted English or European history
  • About the lives of kings, such as Richard III and Henry V
• Comedies


  • The Shoemaker's Holiday by Thomas Dekker
  • A Chaste Maid in Cheapside by Thomas Middleton
• Ballet


  A formalized form of dance which originated from the Italian Renaissance courts
• Development of ballet


  1. Originated in Italy

  2. Flourished in France with the help of Catherine de' Medici

  3. Early example: Le Paradis d'Amour presented at Marguerite de Valois' wedding
• Court ballet


  Royal entertainment commissioned by the aristocracy
• Early court ballet


  • Ballet des Polonais in 1573
• 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 theater


  • Used technology for special effects and scene changes
  • Practiced the Deus ex Machina solution
• The theater was richly decorated, the multiplicity of plot turns and a variety of situations characteristic of Mannerism were succeeded by opera
• Films/stage productions showing Baroque theater technology


  • Vatel (2000)
  • Farinelli (1999)
  • Different stage productions of "Orpheus" by Claudio Monteverdi
• Neoclassical theater


  • Costumes and sceneries were highly elaborate
  • Stages were restyled with dramatic arches
  • Multiple entry points on the stage
  • Lighting and sound effects intensified the mood and message