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PREHISTORIC PERIOD
The earliest recorded theatrical event dates back to 2000 B.C. with the passion plays of Ancient Egypt 1-The story of the god Osiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization, marking the known beginning of a long relationship between theater and religion. 2-The Ikhernofret Stela is an important Ancient Egyptian stela dated to the Middle Kingdom and is notable for its veiled description of how the mysteries of Osiris were carried out in Abydos. -
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GREEK PERIOD
Great Dionysia, also called City Dionysia (534/531 B.C.), is an ancient dramatic festival in which tragedy, comedy, and satyric drama originated; it was held in Athens in March in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine. -
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GREAT DIONYSIA
-In Athens, during City Dionysia festival, men used to perform songs and present plays to welcome Dionysus. -At the early Greek festivals, the actors, directors, and dramatists were all the same person.- After some time, only three actors were allowed to perform in each play.
- Later few non-speaking roles were allowed to perform on-stage.
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ROMAN PERIOD
-Ancient Roman theater was heavily influenced by the Greek tradition. The Roman dramatists tended to adapt and translate from the Greek as writers in other literary genres did. Of the hundreds of playwrights of ancient Rome, only a small percentage of plays have survived the passage of time. -
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PLAUTUS (254-184 B.C.)
The Roman comedy master. He created over a hundred plays, many of which lampooned iconic figures within Roman society: the soldier, the politician, the clever slave, the philandering husband, and the wise but nagging wife. -
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TERENCE (195-159 BC)
Terence's life story is an ancient tale of rags to riches. Terence was the slave of a Roman senator. Apparently, his master was so impressed with young Terence's intellect that he released him from his service and even funded Terence's education. During his adult years, he crafted comedies which were primarily Roman-styled adaptations of Greek plays by Hellenistic writers such as Menander -
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SÉNECA (4 BC-65 AD)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a playwright, a lawyer and a Roman senator.
-During the playwright's lifetime he wrote tragedies, many of them re-inventions of Greek myths of decadence and self-destruction. For example, “Phaedra” (54 AD) is a play by philosopher and dramatist Lucius AnnaeusSeneca, which tells the story of Phaedra, wife of King Theseus of Athens, and her consuming lust for her stepson, Hippolytus. -
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MEDIEVAL PERIOD
In the Middle Ages, theater was reborn as liturgical dramas, written in Latin and dealing with Bible stories and performed by priests or church members. Then came vernacular drama spoken in the vulgate, this was a more elaborate series of oneact dramas enacted in town squares or other parts of the city. -The most famous examples of Medieval plays are the English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays, as well as the morality play, Everyman -
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RENAISSANCE PERIOD
Theatrical activities, particularly comedies, flourished in Italy, England, and Spain during the 16th and early 17th centuries. In the latter part of the period, more elaborate theaters were built to meet the needs of actors and spectators.
-The new interest in classical drama was fired by the rediscovery of texts by Euripides, Seneca, Plautus, and Terence.
- The first important Renaissance tragedy was Giangiorgio Trissino's Sophonisba, which was written in 1515. -
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MODERN PERIOD
In this period, theater was also enjoyed through radio, television, and cinema.
-1924 - Danger by Richard Hughes was the first radio drama written for the BBC (British Broadcasting).
-1928 - The very first television drama was filmed in Schenectady. It was a little play called The Queen's Messenger, a British drama with more special effects technicians than there were television sets in the Capital Region. The play itself was a melodrama by Irish playwright J. Hartley Manners.
