Essay on that kat

Submitted By thata12
Words: 382
Pages: 2

Auriel Smith
Oct. 8, 2013
Theatre 1
“Greek Theatre”
You can go to a play almost anytime you choose. Hundreds of plays are performed almost every night of the week all across the United States. Your opportunities to see a play would have been very limited, however, had you lived in Greece around 400 to 500 B.C. Tragedy plays: Thespis is considered to be the first Greek "actor" and originator of tragedy (which means "goat song", perhaps referring to goats sacrificed to Dionysus before performances, or to goat-skins worn by the performers.) However, his importance is disputed, and Thespis is sometimes listed as late as sixteenth in the chronological order of Greek tragedians. Aristotle's Poetics contain the earliest known theory about the origins of Greek theatre. He says that tragedy evolved from dithyrambs, songs sung in praise of Dionysus at the Dionysian each year. The dithyrambs may have begun as frenzied improvisations but in the 600s BC, the poet Arian is credited with developing the dithyramb into a formalized narrative sung by a chorus. Three well-known Greek tragedy playwrights of the fifth century are Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. Comedy plays: Comedy was also an important part of ancient Greek theatre. Comedy plays were derived from imitation; there are no traces of its origin. Aristophanes wrote most of the comedy plays. Out of these 11 plays survived - Lysistrata, a humorous tale about a strong woman who leads a female coalition to end war in Greece.
Greek Theatre: Theatre buildings were called a theatric. The