1. Remember Theater is the foundation art of all drama Theater creates a relationship between performer and audience Live Personal Immediate (unmediated) Theater teaches “timeless observations about the human condition” Commonalities & Differences Theatre approximates experiential knowledge to elicit empathy. Elements of Theater: Audience, Dramatic Action Embodied in a Script, Performers, Director, Theater Space, & Design Elements. Theatre is collaborative

2. Theatre’s Origins Children’s Play Storytelling Ritual

3. Ancient Greece – 5 th Century BCE  Polytheistic  Artistic  Increasingly commercial & literate  Democratic –Demes –Tribes  Misogyny

4. City Dionysia  Celebration of Dionysus  Three Trilogies produced, each with a Satyr play afterward Theatron Skene Parados Orchestra Mechane Ekkyklema

5. City Dionysia  Actors wore masks – played several parts  Chorus (audience’s representative on stage) danced in orchestra  Aulis was a double reeded flute that was played  Audience knew stories Know the difference between Story and Plot

6. City Dionysia  3 main tragedians – Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides  Comedy came later  Old Comedy was satirical in nature – Aristophanes - added parabasis  New Comedy romantic and domestic farce  Aristotle’s poetics 335 BCE - 6 elements –Plot, Character, Theme, Language, Music, Spectacle