Greek and Roman Theater
The Greeks in Athens built the world's first theater about 550 BC The world's first theater production was performed by the Greeks. The Greeks were the first people to create theater performances. The Romans borrowed Greek ideas to create their own productions. There are many differences between the early Greek plays and the early Roman plays, there are also many similarities. The early plays by Greeks were tragedies consisted of acted episodes performed by one actor who also conversed with the leader of the chorus. During this action, chorus members would react in pattern movements and gestures to what was happening. Early Greek tragedies became very elaborate and dramatic. These performances developed into festivals. These festivals covered several days of the end of March, and were open to all Greeks. The state financed the theater building and also provided its maintenance, paid fees to the actors and also provided prizes for the dramatic contests. The help of Greek poetry created these plays. The Greeks would perform dances before they started to form Theater productions. These dancing and singing festivals developed into acting. This is where Greeks got their idea t
After Greek civilization declined in the later part of the Hellenistic Age, the Romans carried on many of the theatrical traditions the Greeks had created. Stock characters such as a young lover, angry fathers, clever slaves, cooks, and self-important soldiers abounded. This was because of the strict limitations on the kinds of setting a playwright was allowed to have. The chorus was reduced to a group of actors who entered periodically and sang and danced numbers that had nothing to do with the plots. The queen's costumes was always purple, the traditional color of royalty, so that the spectators who had no programs could easily recognize the characters. Thespis was the first actor to act in Greek Theater. The new comic plays had no choral songs and no interaction between chorus and the main actors. The masks they wore were so that the audience could recognize the characters at glance. These plays took place outdoors in front of a house or temple. So the actors performed on wooden stages that could be built in less then a day. All of the Roman's ideas were borrowed from the Greeks. Certain characters had certain costume colors. The plays were so popular that in the following fifty years were introduced. Although the actors in the Roman plays spoke Latin, their plays did consist of Greek originals.
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