• ritual played a role in the development of drama in the days of early people
• ancient societies used ritual to embody their understanding of the human condition and of the world around them
• ritual had a religious purpose, and instructive purpose (teaching), it was also a form of entertainment
• common elements are found in ritual - music, dance and elaborate movement, mask and costume
• 1200 BC in Greece, the "Cult of Dionysus" practiced ritual celebrations of fertility, which over time altered and became Spring rituals with theatre at the center of the celebration
• a key part of the rites of Dionysus was the dithyramb - performed by a chorus of 50 men dressed as satyr, playing flutes and drums, dancing and chanting (this was religion remember!)
  
• in 500 BC we see the beginnings of Western theatre in Athens (2,000 years before Shakespeare!) with the spring festivals - drama competitions featuring plays of Tragedy and Comedy
• ancient Athenians created a theatre culture whose form, technique and language are used today
• plays written at that time are still regularly performed today
• Thespis added an actor to interact with the chorus, and won the first drama competition in 534 BC, thus are actors to this day called "thespians"
• Aeschylus is considered the earliest playwright & introduced the idea of an antagonist
• Sophocles added the concept of a third actor to the play
• Euripedes and Aristophanes developed plays with more realism and dialogue
• major theatres were constructed at this time, notably at Delphi and the Acropolis
• competitions drew as many as 30,000 spectators
• plays were performed in the day time (no electric lights!)
• actors wore masks - some say which helped to amplify the voice and show characters through exaggerated features
• there were no costumes or sets, the focus was on the chorus and later, the actors
• only men acted
• tragedy (literally goat song) told a story intended to teach religious lessons, and the right and wrong path in life
• tragic protagonist is the one who refuses to accept fate, either out of weakness of strength
• examples are: Oedipus Rex, Agamemnon, Orestes.
• Aristophanes wrote comedy - a type of lampoon of high brow culture
• comedy relied on satire, topical issues of the day and made fun of celebrities (namely tragic writers)
• classic comedy types were born of this time, such as the miser, the grouch, the arrogant, etc and relied on stories of mistaken identity, romances and situational humour
• the end of Greek times was heralded by the death of Sophocles, the arrival of the Spartans and times of war

source: The ELAC Guide to Ancient Greece http://www.perspicacity.com/elactheatre/library/pedia/greek.htm

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