Greek Theatre

The greek theatre was flourished in between 550 & 220 BC. It became a popular part of a festival called 'Dionysia' which honoured the god Dionysus. There is three dramatic genres, tradegy, comedy, and satyr which is tragic comedy and it is based on Greek methology.

The theatre can hold a chorus of up to fifty people, and it can fit in around 14,000 people in the audience. It was built to accomodate acoustics (how we hear sounds), so that the actors voices was able to be heard. The theatre continued, and in 456 BC the theatre began to use backdrops and scenic walls which was hung beinhd the orchestra. Special effects was used like a crane, to give the impression of flying actors, trap doors or openings to lift the actors onto the stage, and a wheeled wagon to have the dead character in view of the audience. The seating was in the shape of a semi-circle, with rows of seats one above the other making stepped rows of seating. The back rows were high up, and they was quite far from the stage, but everyone could still hear the actors speaking though because of the shape of the theatre.

The actors at the theatre rarely had more than three actors, and these actors were always male actors, and when they performed for several roles they wore large, colourful masks. The actors also wore padded clothes and shoes with large soles to make the audiences view look like they appeared larger, especially the people who was seated in the upper rows of the theatre. Behind the orchestra was the stage, which was a wooden platform. On this platform, is where the actors performed. On the platform was a small hut, called the 'skene', which was used as a building and actors could walk in and out of the door in the front.
A famous writer of plays called Sophokles decided to paint the front of the skene building with a nature scene for one of his plays. This was the invention of scenery on stage, which is where the English word 'scenery' comes from originally.
Behind the stage there was sometimes a crane called the 'mekhane', and actors could be hung from the crane to play gods or monsters flying through the air. These were early special effects.