Greek Theater

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Greek Theater
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Dionysus

• Greek God of Wine and Harvest
• Greek theater originally celebrated him
• People attended yearly festivals honoring
  Dionysus (about 15,000)

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Thespis

• 1st know Greek actor
• Actors today are call Thespians in his honor

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Greek Theater

• Actors change roles by changing their masks
• In Greek drama the function of the orchestra is
  were the chorus of man and boys performed
• Greek build their theaters on hillsides.
• The seating was call theatrons.
• In Greek drama the chorus told the story.

Theatrons
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Types of Greek plays

• Tragedies character suffering a disastrous end
• Comedies dramas with happy endings
• Satire plays that made fun of great legends

Sad
Happy
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Aristotle

• 1st know literary critic
• Wrote a book about theater call The Poetics

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Skene

• Small building behind the orchestra
• Front of the skene was used for scenery
• Back of the skene was used to change the masks.

Skene
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Sophocles

• Name means wise and honored one.
• Two things Sophocles won prizes as a young man
  were wrestling and music
• Sophocles teacher was Aeschules
• Sophocles wrote 120 plays
• Sophocles died at the age of 90

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Sophocles change Greek theater

• Increased the size of the chorus from 12 to 15
• Used 3 actors instead of two

Sophocles changes the plays by
Plays had better structure plays More
believable characters in the plays Plays were
more realistic