Greek Theatre

Greek theatre is based upon 3 main genre's for example, comedy, tragedy and satire. The plays were based of myths from ancient and classical fiction.

The layout and design of Greek theatre's (amphitheatre) was to fit as many audiences members as possible per performance. 

Reference: http://www.generativeart.com/on/cic/papers2005/42.YiannisMelanitis_file/image012.jpg

The Theatron (meaning viewing place (the seating)) was where in some thousands of people could be seated. As you can see from the diagram above the shaping was designed to fit maximum people whilst still enabling the audience to have a good view of the performance. The seating was arranged going upward which allowed sound from the actors on the skene or stage to travel further. The out of theatre complex made it open to the sky and at times the night sky which in Greek times the sky was were the gods lived which I'm sure added more depth to the plays.

The Orchestra was where any musical persons would be placed, also used for dancers and the chores to fill the space.

The Parodos was the two side entrances to the main stages, this was where the actors would enter the scene.

The Altar was positioned in the middle of the orchestra and was sometimes used as a stage prop, for example for sacrifices.

The Skene was a woodern structure and was used as a dressing room for actors, it also contained entrances and exits in which the actors could also use to enter and exit the main stages.

Greek Plays

All the actors in Greek plays were men or boys. And masks were regularly used to express obvious emotion in certain scenes or throughout entire performances. Some masks contained two sides for opposing emotions or to show two different characters. Masks were also used to represent female characters as only men were allowed to perform but as women nowadays are able to perform equally with men the use of masks has almost lost it's power. As well as masks, wigs were used to help the characters be distinguished from each other and used to express a characters personality.

Entertainment was the main reason for Greek theatre, even if the main genre was tragedy. These days the reasoning behind putting on a production is strictly to make a profit, this would explain why a lot of changes have been made throughout the development of performance.

Religion and the gods were a massive influence on the plays whereas modern day plays contain little religious aspects and aren't based off myths.

There was little things in the entertainment aspect back in Greek times which is probably why theatre performances were not only so popular but also respected and more relatable to audience members, these days we have the cinema for example which is now a more popular form of entertainment.

Seating is much more bearable compared to the stone steps you had to sit on in Greek times. The biggest impact on performances in modern plays is the use of special effects, of which in the Greek era they had few. Special effects include digital sounds of anything, lighting effects, lighting in general, projections and the use of multimedia in performances.

To conclude ancient Greek theatres are very different to modern day theatres but still contain aspects of similarity.