HISTORY OF THEATRE

A passion play performed annually at Abydos from about 2500 BC to about 550 BC
EGYPT

...dealt with the death and resurrection of the god Osiris

Despite the advanced civilization that developed in ancient Egypt, theatrical activity never progressed beyond ritual, pageantry, burial ceremonies, and commemorations of dead pharaohs.

Greek philosopher Aristotle (4th century BC) claimed that theatre began with hymns to god Dionysus presented at an annual festival.
GREECE

According to tradition Dionysus died each winter
and was reborn each spring

Greece’s earliest theatre architecture took its form from the threshing circle - a round, flat circle at the base of a hillside that was used for separating wheat from the chaff

By the 5th century BC, when the classical period began, 2 performance areas were cradled within the curve of a hillside:
One where a chorus performed, usually portraying ordinary citizens
And the other where the main actors performed

One speaking actor portrayed mythical and historical characters, at first in an empty space and later in front of a rectangular building that formed a neutral background

This scene building could represent different places as needed:
a palace
a temple
a house
or a cave for example.

Initially audiences stood or were seated on the ground, later, wooden or stone benches on the hillside formed an auditorium.
The open-air theaters of ancient Greece, which held some 20,000 people, became the prototypes for amphitheaters, Roman coliseums, and modern sports arenas

The most celebrated theater of classical Athens, the theater of Dionysus, was located on the slope of a hill below the Acropolis

The four Greek playwrights whose work has survived, wrote for annual dramatic festivals held there:

Aeschylus
Sophocles

Euripides
Aristophanes

Their plays expanded and interpreted the characters and stories of legend and history

During the 5th century BC, the features of Athens‘s annual dramatic festival became fixed: three groups of players—each consisting of a chorus, musicians, and two (later three) actors—competed in acting four sets of plays.

Each set contained three tragedies and a satyr play, a burlesque of Greek myth that served as comic relief
Costumes were richly decorated, masks elaborate, and physical action restrained.
In the 4th century BC, theaters throughout the Greek world grew more elaborate.

The first drama was performed outdoors at annual games dedicated to the gods, and Roman theatre maintained a circus-like atmosphere
Works by only two Roman writers survived till today:
ROME

Plautus
Seneca

Early Roman stages were temporary narrow platforms of wood approximately 30 m (100 ft) long.
The stage house was decorated with columns, statues, niches, and porticoes, and covered with a roof.

The platform served as a street, where the dramatic action occurred, and openings in the back wall served as doorways into fictional houses that bordered the street.

The first stone theater in Rome, in imitation of Greek theatres, was built in the 1st century BC
In the permanent stone theatres, the stage house and the auditorium formed a single architectural unit, and the orchestra was a half circle between the stage and auditorium.

A distinguishing feature of Roman theater was a curtain at the front of the stage that dropped into a slot at the beginning of a performance and was raised at the end.

Roman actors wore thin sandals, garments of the time, and masks that were useful for playing multiple roles

By the 1st century AD, these spectacles had become increasingly bloodthirsty . The last recorded performance in Rome occurred in 533AD.