Music

• Theater


  A place of seeing, more than just the buildings where performances take place
• Producing a theater


  1. Playwright writes

  2. Director rehearses performers

  3. Designers and crew produce props

  4. Actors perform

  5. Audience witnesses
• Greek theater


  • Began around 700 BC with festivals honoring the god Dionysus
  • Consisted of 3 dramas: tragedy, comedy, satire
• Greek tragedies


  • Dealt with tragic events and the downfall of the main character
  • Thespis was the first actor and introduced the use of masks
• Greek comedies


  • Derived from imitation, with no traces of their origin
  • Aristophanes wrote most of the comedy plays
• Greek satires


  • Contained comic elements to lighten the overall mood or had a serious play with a happy ending
• Greek theater building (Theatron)


  • Large open-air structure constructed on the slope of hills
  • Consisted of 3 main elements: orchestra, skene, and audience
• Roman theater


  • Started in the 3rd century BC
  • Had varied art forms like festivals, performances, street theaters, acrobatics, and staging of comedies and tragedies
  • Themes included chariot races, gladiators, and public executions
• Medieval theater


  • From 500 CE to 1400s
  • Performances were not allowed throughout the group, dominated by the church
  • Performers traveled from town to town as puppeteers, jugglers, storytellers, dancers, and singers
• Renaissance theater


  • From 1400s to 1600s
  • Characterized by the return of classical Greek and Roman arts and culture
  • Included mystery plays, morality plays, university dramas, and commedia dell'arte
• Playwrights and poets of the Renaissance period

  • William Shakespeare, regarded as the greatest writer and dramatist
• William Shakespeare's well-known plays include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Macbeth
• Ballet was performed for the first time during the Renaissance period