Ancient Greek Theatre

1. Plays performed as part of religious festivals in honour of the gods, particularly Dionysius.

2. There were two types of Greek plays: tragedy and comedy.

3. Tragedies were serious plays about the past and showed disastrous events with unhappy endings.

4. Comedies were funny plays, about current, everyday life, which often poked fun at important people.

5. Sophocles was a famous Ancient Greek playwright who wrote one hundred and twenty-three dramas.

6. He added a third actor to plays, increased the number in the chorus and developed scene paintings.

7. Ancient Greek theatres were semi-circular in shape, open-air and often built into the hillsides.

8. Early Greek theatres were made of wood, later ones of stone.

9. Some Greek theatres seated as many as twenty thousand people..

10. The audiences sat in pre-booked seats,with judges and important visitors having special stone seats at the front of the theatre.

11. When they arrived at the theatre the Ancient Greeks were given lettered tokens showing them where to sit.

12. Ancient Greek audiences ate and drank throughout performances.

13. The whole audience could see and hear the play clearly due to the way that the Ancient Greeks designed their theatres.

14. Greek actors performed on a raised stage and were always men, as women were not allowed on the stage.

15. Greek actors chanted or sang their lines.

16. Greek actors actors wore colourful masks, made from clay, linen, or bark.

17. The masks showed the mood of characters, allowed actors to play more than one role and made faces visible from a distance.

18. The story told by chorus who sang, chanted and danced, there were between six and fifteen people in the chorus.

19. The chorus stood in area below stage known as orchestra.

20. Greek plays were accompanied by music, the lyre, kithara and auloi being popular Ancient Greek instruments.

21. The design of Greek theatres still influences theatre design today.