Arts

• 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.
• Greek Theater


  • It began around 700 BC with festivals honoring their gods. Dionysus (Di-on-i-sus), the god of wine and fertility, has religious festivals called "The Cult of Dionysus" to honor him.
  • The theater consisted of three types of drama: Tragedy, Comedy, and Satyr.
• Tragedy


  The most admired type of play. It dealt with tragic events and have an unhappy ending speacially one concerning the downfall of the main character. Thespis was the first actor and introduced the use of masks and was called the "Father of Tragedy."
• Comedy


  The plays were derived from imitation; there were no traces of their origin. Aristophanes wrote most of the comedy plays.
• Satyr


  These plays contains comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending. This is a short, lighthearted tailpiece performed after each trilogy of tragedies.
• Greek Theater Building


  • It is 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 Theater


  • It had 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.
  • The usual themes for Roman theater plays were chariots races, gladiators, and public executions.
  • Comedy plays were popular too in the Roman Theater from 350 to 250 BC 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. The building was a part of a multi-use complex that included a large quadriporticus (a columned quadrangle), directly behind the scaenae fron (an elaborately decorated background of theater stage), and is enclosed by the large columned portricos with an expansive garden complex of fountains and statues.
• Medieval Theater


  • During this era, theater performances were not allowed throughout Europe. To keep the theater alive, minstrels, though denounced by the Church, performed in markets, public places and festivals. They travelled from one town to another as puppeteers, jugglers, story tellers, dancers, singers, and other performers in other theatrical acts.
• Renaissance Theater


  • Were characterized by a return of Classical Greek Roman arts and culture. Public theaters were developed like Commedia dell'arte (Italian comedy and a humorous theatrical presentation performed by professional players who traveled in troupes) and elaborate masques (a dramatic entertainment consisting of pantomime, dancing, dialogue, song and sometimes players who wore masks) that were usually presented in court.
• William Shakespeare


  • An English poet, playwright, and actor and was regarded as the greatest writer and dramatist in the whole world. Shakespeare was often called Engaland's National Poet and the "Bard of Avon." His works consist of about 38 plays. Some of these plays were well-loved: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Much Ado about Nothing.
• Ballet


  • A formalized form of dance which originated from Italian Renaissance courts.
• Innovations of Renaissance Stage

  • Proscenium was developed. This is the area of a theater surrounding the stage opening. Arches frame and divide the stage from the audience.
  • Backdrops for every scenery were popularized by the art of painting clothes.
  • Commedia dell'arte or "Comedy of the Profession" was developed. It was quick-witted performance of the characters/players.
• Baroque Theater


  • This period is marked by the use technology in current Broadways or commercial plays. The theater crew uses machine for special effects and scene changes which may be changed in a matter of seconds with the use of ropes and pulleys.
  • The theater was richly decorated, the multiplicity of plot turns and a variety of situations characteristic of Mannerism (a variety of approaches or intellectual sophistication as well as using artificial qualities of the play) were succeeded by opera.
• Neoclassical Theater


  • The theater was characterized by its grandiosity. Costumes and sceneries were highly elaborate. The main concepts of the plays were to entertain and to teach lessons. Stages were restyled with dramatic arches to highlight the scenes. Multiple entry points on the stage were evident in many plays. Lighting and sound effects intensified the mood and message of each scene, enhancing dramatic experience.
  • The concept of decorum (right and proper audience behavior) was applied in this period which means classical concepts and appropriate social behavior must be observed. This period officially established just two types of plays – tragedy and comedy.
• Romantic Theater


  • Melodrama and operas became the most popular theatrical forms. Melodramas originated from the French word melodrama, which is derived from Greek melos, which means "music" and French drame, which is derived from the Greek dran to "perform".
  • Opera – is 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 of theater.
• Romantic Playwrights and Composers

  • Victor Marie Hugo, Charles Nodier, George Sand, Heinrich von Kleist, Ludwig Uhland
  • George Bizet, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Frederic Chopin, Ludwig van Bethoveen, Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelson, and Hector Berlioz.
• Oedipus Rex


  Greek Oidipous Tyrannos, play by Sophocles, performed sometime between 430 and 426 BCE, that marks the summit of classical Greek drama's formal achievement, known for its tight construction, mounting tension, and perfect use of the dramatic devices of recognition and discovery. It examines the story of Oedipus, who, in attempting to flee from his fate, rushes headlong to meet it.
• Sophocles


  An ancient Greek tragedian. His contemporary playwrights were Aeschylus and Euripides. He wrote 123 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus.
• Plays by Sophocles that have survived


  • Ajax
  • Antigone
  • The Women of Trachis
  • Oedipus the King
  • Electra
  • Philoctetes
  • Oedipus at Colonus
• Oedipus


  • King of Thebes, represented with a gold mask with exaggerated deep empty eye sockets
• Creon


  • Brother-in-law of Oedipus, mad or angry facial expression, with crown
• Eurydice


  • Creon's wife
• Apollo


  • God or oracle of Delphi
• King Laius


  • Father of Oedipus
• Jocasta


  • Wife of Laius and mother of Oedipus, the expression of her mask depends on the scene of the play
• Antigone and Ismene


  • Daughters of Oedipus
• Mask

  • Used to advance the universality of the themes and the dramatic impact of the events and to keep the audience from being distracted by the actual, physical attributes of the actors
• Gestures and Movements

  • Facial expression was of no importance to Greek actors, since they were always masked
• Music

  • Sophocles used the chorus at the beginning of the play to help tell the audience the given circumstances of the play, choruses did a lot of lamenting of terrible events
• Oedipus Rex


  Greek Oidipous Tyrannos, play by Sophocles, performed sometime between 430 and 426 BCE, that marks the summit of classical Greek drama's formal achievement, known for its tight construction, mounting tension, and perfect use of the dramatic devices of recognition and discovery. It examines the story of Oedipus, who, in attempting to flee from his fate, rushes headlong to meet it.
• Sophocles


  An ancient Greek tragedian. His contemporary playwrights were Aeschylus and Euripides. He wrote 123 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus.
• Main Characters in Oedipus Rex

  • Oedipus - the king of Thebes
  • Creon - brother in law of Oedipus
  • Eurydice - Creon's wife
  • Apollo - god or oracle of Delphi
  • King Laius - Father of Oedipus
  • Jocasta - wife of Laius and mother of Oedipus
  • Antigone and Ismene - the daughters of Oedipus
• Use of mask in Oedipus Rex


  • The use of mask acts to advance the universality of the themes and the dramatic impact of the events and to keep the audience from being distracted by the actual, physical attributes of the actors
• Gestures and Movements in Oedipus Rex


  • Facial expression was of no importance to Greek actors, since they were always masked
• Music in Oedipus Rex

  • Sophocles also used the chorus at the beginning of the play to help tell the audience the given circumstances of the play. Choruses did a lot of lamenting of terrible events
• Costumes in Oedipus Rex

  • Men wore loose floor length poncho with pleated shoulder while females wore draped robes
• Staging in Oedipus Rex


  • The Parthenon's façade has the design of Ionic order columns with cornice and moldings on the top, elevated by 5 step-rises at the center, and a platform in front near the audience
• Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families