1. Theater and Drama

2.  Theater – It is executed according to its
elements in dance, drama in mask, music
and sounds, and costumes and props.
 Drama – It is a prose or poetical composition
presenting a story of human life through the
performance of actors and actresses. It is an
experience shared between the participants
on stage and the people in the auditorium.

3. Production is considered successful when a play is
staged artistically, when acting is well-emoted, and
when the audience is captivated by all these.
Steps in Play Production:
 Choosing the Script
 Director
 Some of the director’s most important duties:
 Choosing the cast members
 Teaching stage business
 Scheduling rehearsals
 Discussing characterization
 Planning out and determining with the help of artist
 Drawing up committees to compose the stage crew

4. Casting > it is the first things that director’s do by means
of tryouts or audition
 Roles- a person’s appearance, size, voice, and diction
are the factors to be considered
 Casts- the group of people who play the roles
Rehearsals > the first rehearsal is a reading of the whole
play done by the director or by the cast reading their
own parts

5. Stage business > in a play, actors and actresses move
around, talk, sit, laugh, make phone calls. These
things that the players do on stage are called
business
 Cross- the walking on stage
 Right cross
 Left cross
 Blocking
 Upstage
 Downstage

6.  Characterization > the actors may be asked to
interpret their lines after discussions have been held
over the attitudes, feelings, reactions, or behavior of
the persons in the play which they are impersonating
 Scenery > the background or backdrop for the whole
play
 Properties or props > it include the commonly used
items like a sofa, chairs, tables, baskets, and the like,
borrowed or made

7.  Costumes > the artistic director contact a
couturier or costumer to design the costumes and
make them unless the players have their own
particular tailor
 Curtain call > prolonged applause which a
performer acknowledges by appearing on the stage
after the end of a play or scene

8. MEN BEHIND THE SCENES
 Stage manager – job is to oversee everything
 Music and sound effects man
 Prompters
 Prop and scenery committee
 Lights committee
 Wardrobe mistress

9.  Dress rehearsals > is needed for at least two
times
 The performance > all participants should
remain backstage and not to mingle with the
audience unless specified.

10. Theater
and
History

11. The Major Periods of Ancient Western Theatre (BCE =
BC; CE = AD)
*The Major Periods of Ancient Western
Ancient Greece (800-200 BCE)
Pre-Classical Age (to 500 BCE)
Classical Age (500-400 BCE)
Post-Classical/Hellenistic Age (400-200 BCE)

12.  Ancient Rome (753 BCE -476 CE)
 1.Early Roman Native Theatre (to 240 BCE)
 2.Age of Greek-Based Drama (240-100 BCE)
 3.Popular Entertainment (100 BCE -476 CE)
 Theatre (BCE = BC; CE = AD)

13.  3000-800 BCE: Egyptian Civilization
 800 BCE: Pre-Classical Greek Civilization
 800-700 BCE: Homer and Epic Poetry (Iliad, Odyssey)
 700-550 BCE: Lyric Poetry (Sappho)
 550-529 BCE: The Tyrant Pisistratus rules Athens
 534 BCE: The Inauguration of the City Dionysia
 529-512 BCE: Pisistratus’son Hippiasrules Athens
 512-508 BCE: Exile of Hippiasand Political Chaos in
Athens
 508 BCE: Birth of Athenian Democracy

14.  500-479 BCE: Early Classical Age
 490; 481-479 BCE: The Persian Wars
 486BCE: Comedy premieres at the Dionysia
 479-431 BCE: The Pentakontaetia
 472 BCE: Aeschylus produces The Persians
 460-429 BCE: Pericles leads Athens
 ca. 463-405 BCE: Sophocles’career as a playwright
 431-404 BCE: The Peloponnesian War
 455-406 BCE: Euripides’career as a playwright
 427-386 BCE: Aristophanes writes Old Comedy

15.  404-338 BCE: Greek Civil War
 371 BCE: Thebes defeats Sparta at Leuctra
 360-336 BCE: Philip II rules Macedonia
 385-325 BCE: Middle Comedy
 338-323 BCE: Alexander the Great
 338 BCE: Philip defeats Greek at Chaeronea
 336-323 BCE: Alexander conquers much of the ancient
world
 322-200’s BCE: The Hellenistic Age
 423-391 BCE: Menander writes New Comedy

16.  753-510 BCE: Early Roman Kingdom
 600-510 BCE: Etruscans rule Rome (gladiators)
 510 BCE: Founding of the Roman Republic
 510-264 BCE: Romans conquer Italy
 400’s and 300’s BCE: Early Italian Drama
 AtellanFarce, FescennineVerse, phlyaxplays,
hilarotragodiae
 264-241 BCE: The First Punic War (Carthage)
 241 BCE: LiviusAndronicus translates The Odysseyin
Latin

17.  241-202 BCE: Early Roman Greek-Based Drama
 218-202 BCE: The Second Punic War (Hannibal)
 202-100 BCE: The Romans conquer Greece
 205-186 BCE: Plautus writes Roman Comedy
(palliatae)
 166-160 BCE: Terence writes Roman Comedy
 100’s BCE: Pacuviusand Acciuswrite Roman tragedy
 133-123 BCE: The Gracchilead a revolt against the
increasingly corrupt Senate


18.  100-44 BCE: The Rise of Generals
 Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar
 44-31 BCE: Civil War between Octavian (later
Augustus) and Mark Antony
 31 BCE: Octavian defeats Antonyat the Battle of
Actium
 31 BCE -476 CE: The Roman Empire
 ca. 50-65 CE: “Seneca”writes only extant Roman
tragedy
 Gladiators, chariot races, blood sports, mime,
pantomime, ...

19.  •Webster: "the branch of knowledge that deals
systematically with the past"
 •Henry Ford: "more or less bunk"
 •anonymous student: "one damn thing after another"
 •Simon Schauma: "the study of the past in all its
splendid messiness"

20. Historiography “the study of historical methods”
historia
 •the ancient Greek word for “questioning”
 •i.e. research (into the past)
 •a term coined by Herodotus
 •part of the Ionian Revolution
 •which embraced a search for the “elements”which
underlay all being

21.  historians
 •are like scientists
 •dig for new data in mounds or libraries
 •but cannot repeat an experiment
 •in that regard, historians are more like detectives than
scientists
 •they look for “evidence”


22.  theatre
 •S. Johnson: “an echo of the public’s voice”
 •Shakespeare: “a mirror”
 •Giraudoux: “a trial”
 •Farquhar: “a banquet”

 theatron
 •in ancient Greek literally, “an instrument for viewing”
 •i.e. the seats
 •not the stage or orchestra or parodoi!

23.  theatre
 •John Cage: “theatre takes place all the time wherever
one goes”
 •Bernard Beckerman: theatre happens whenever “one
of more human beings, isolated in time and/or space,
present themselves to another or others”
 •Patti Gillespie: “performances by living actors that
take place in the presence of living audiences”

24.  •language: versus movement in dance, song in opera
 •impersonation: versus rules in a game, teaching in a
classroom
 •audience: or, better, “viewers”
 –n.b. there is a theatre for the deaf, but no theatre for
the blind

25. The Hellenistic Age
 •general chaos and confusion after Sparta’s victory in the
Peloponnesian War
 •led to a civil war of sorts inside Greece
 •the rise of Thebes
 •the Battle of Leuctra(371 BCE): “the graveyard of the
Spart•the rise of Macedon
 •especially, Philip II
 •defeated the combined forces of the southern Greeks at
Chaeronea(338 BCE)
 •but Philip was assassinated (336 BCE)

26. •and Alexanderassumed Philip’s throne,
saddled up and rode east
Alexander’s conquests opened up the East to
Greek cultural colonization
•the Greek language began to evolve into a
vernacular dialect called koine
•the Greeks were, in general, richer than ever
before
–but depressed
–and disoriented (get it?)
an aristocracy”

27.  •rise of many new philosophies
 •Stoicism: be unemotional and trust that the
universe has a plan
 •Epicureanism: retreat behind garden walls
and avoid pain

28.  Art in the
Hellenistic Age•
all this led to drastic
changes in art•
e.g. statuary focuses
on violence/pain
•technically brilliant but
hollow

29.  •tragedy faltered, collapsed and died
 –though revivals of “old”tragedies from the
Classical Age still had a huge following
 •comedy survived by inventing the sit-com
 •also, mimethrived but did not peak —yet!
 –still too bawdy and low-brow for most viewers
 –drama would not sink as low as mime—at
least,

30.  measures
 –e.g. fewer choruses (or new odes)
 –also, the end of the parabasis
 –and the end of thephallus
 •also, less direct assault on those in power
 •instead, comedies ridiculed figures in myth

31.  no play extant from 388 to 316 BCE
 •this period is called “Middle Comedy”
 •but we can judge from the outcome what must
have happened
 –especially, the development of stock character
types
 –e.g. braggart soldier, greedy prostitute, young
lover, stingy old man, etc.

32.  the “father of New Comedy”
 •later comic poets used his melodramatic style,
particularly in crafting complex plots
 •but no choruses (i.e. written by dramatists)
 –only four “choral interludes”(> five acts)
 –Aristotle called these songs
embolima(“throw-ins”)
 –but were they unrelated to the plot?

33.  •greatest author of Middle Comedy was Alexis
of Thurii
 •no play of his survives entire
 –but many fragments
 –and the Greek original of Plautus’Poenulus?
 •invented the character of the parasite
 –parasitos(“priest’s assistant”)

34.  •by late 300’s BCE, New Comedyappears
 –many playwrights from outside Greece
 •based on common domestic concerns
 –e.g. family, wealth, being a good neighbor
 •but built around extraordinary coincidences,
like Euripides’rescue plays
 –e.g. recovery of long-lost children

35.  •New Comedy was seen to reflect life in the day
realistically
 •thus, it also shaped life in Hellenistic Greece
 –e.g. offered a more optimistic and hopeful
view of life than that of Stoics/Epicureans
 •but still another “garden wall”for Greeks
desperate to flee from the world at large

36.  •three great exponents of New Comedy
 –cf. the triad of classical tragedians
 •Philemon(ca. 368-267 BCE)
 –won most often at the Dionysia
 –much reflection on philosophy
 •Diphilus(ca. 360-290 BCE)
 –from Sinope(on the shore of the Black Sea)
 –famous for farce and physical comedy

38.  •but the “star of New Comedy”was
Menander(ca. 344-291 BCE)
 –however, only considered best after his
lifetime, cf. Euripides
 •his plays, however, were not carried down
through a manuscript tradition
 –his Greek is later (not classical) so his drama
was not used in training medieval schoolboys

39.  yet much of his work has been found among the
papyri unearthed in Egypt
 –very popular reading even long after his death
 •one complete play (Dyscolus, “The Grouch”)
and many sizeable fragments
 –more than half of Samia, Epitrepontes, Aspis
 –less than half of Sicyonius, Misoumenos,
Perikeiromene

40. Post-Classical
Theatre

41.  •evolution toward the inclusion of drama in more
festivals
 •festivals also became panhellenic
 •the general collapse of civic pride in Greece led to
fewer choregoi
 •which, in turn, forced the creation of the
agonothetes(“dramatic-contest official”)

42.  •the rise of mega-stars like Polus
 –very popular around the known world!
 •also, the formation of The Artists of Dionysus, a
union overseeing the interests of theatre
professionals
 –especially those who went on tour
 – the usefulness of the three-actor rule and
embolimato

43.  •new technical devices
 –bronteion: thunder
 –keraunoskopeion: lightning
 –“Charon’ssteps”: dead rising from tombs
 •many different types of theatres
 –some are larger than the Theatre of Dionysus
(Ephesus)
 –others are smaller (Delphi)

48. •a low-brow form of entertainment
–not popular during the Classical Age, even
though it is attested that far back
–nor even during the Post-Classical Age
•rose to prominence in the Roman period

49. highly variable in form and tone
–mostly raucous, indecorous, full of slapstick
–but later mime could be philosophical
•and may not even have been performed
•only one principal performer (archimime)
–who played all the speaking parts!
•mime was what the early Christian fathers despised
and protested against so much

51. •we owe a great debt to the Romans in terms of culture,
language, politics, DNA
•and also theatre, but only in certain ways
–Greek terms: theatre, drama, tragedy, comedy, critic, theory,
program, orchestration
•but the Romans were, on the whole, not innovators in
theatre or drama
–they were mostly transmitters of Greek culture
•Roman drama was largely dependent on its inimitable Greek
forebear
–to the Romans, theatre was a diversion and form of leisure,
cf. neg-otium(“no business”)
–not an art to be taken seriously per se

52. the works of only three Roman playwrights have
been preserved whole
–Plautus(fl. 208-186 BCE): 19 comedies based on
Greek originals by a variety of New Comedy
dramatists (Middle Comedy?)
–Terence(fl. 166-160 BCE): 6 comedies, all from
Menander and Apollodorusof Carystus
–Seneca(4 BCE-65 CE): 8 tragedies based on Greek
tragedy, 1 fabulapraetexta

53. Native Italian drama Native Italian drama (pre-
240 BCE)
 –Fescennineverses, phlyaces, Atellanfarce
Literary Drama Literary Drama (240-100 BCE)
 –Plautus and Terence, Republican tragedians
Popular Entertainment Popular Entertainment
(100 BCE-476CE)
 –circuses, spectacles, mime (Seneca)

54. •there is a major discrepancy between the textual
and material evidence
–the majority of Roman drama comes from the late
Republic (late 200’s/early 100’s BCE)
•Seneca’s tragedies are later but it is questionable
whether they were designed for performance
–all existing Roman theatres—and depictions of
them!—date to after the 100’s BCE

55. •the earliest attested forms of Roman
entertainment come from the Etruscans, e.g.
gladiatorial combat
–Etruscan ister> Latin histrio histrio (cf.
histrionics)
–Etruscan phersu> Latin persona persona
(cf. person, personality)

57. –crude clowns improvising alternating verses
–cf. early Greek komos—is this a “history”concocted
in the absence of real data? hilarotragodia
hilarotragodia (or phlyaces/phlyaxplays)
–no scripts preserved
–and only one author’s name and play titles are
cited: Rhinthon Rhinthon of Syracuse of
Syracuse

58. •no permanent (stone/concrete) theatre in
the city of Rome until 55 BCE
–the Theatre of Pompey
•before that, all theatres were “temporary”
–i.e. made of wood, but not necessarily cheap!
–these are now impossible to reconstruct
•all the same, theatres existed throughout the
rest of the Roman world

59. •all extant theatres date to the first
century BCE and later
•when the Romans began to use
concrete
•thus, they could be situated downtown