What is the history of theatre?

 

The city-state of Athens is where western theatre originated.[4] It was part of a broader culture of theatricality and performance in classical Greece that included festivals, religious rituals, politics, law, athletics and gymnastics, music, poetry, weddings, funerals, and symposia.[5]

 

Participation in the city-state's many festivals—and attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in particular—was an important part of citizenship.[6] Civic participation also involved the evaluation of the rhetoric of orators evidenced in performances in the law-court or political assembly, both of which were understood as analogous to the theatre and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic vocabulary.[7] The Greeks also developed the concepts of dramatic criticism, acting as a career, and theatre architecture.[8] The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play.[9...

 

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