Map by Tenley Meissner

Greece Theatre (534B.C-220AD)

280493_1 — 2024-09-24 19:33:24 UTC

Singers started to act before singing.

During a festival for theatre, it wasn’t just a celebration, it was a reaffirmation of Athens.

We don’t don’t actually have pictures of production back then in Greece, but some vases suggest what it was like.

Roman Theatre (27B.C.E.-476C.E.)

280493_1 — 2024-09-24 19:41:02 UTC

Roman Theatre plagrized Greek when it comes to plays, so nothing was original.

Even during a disease, they still did plays, to either lighten the mood or bring people together during that time of illness.

In order to legalize theater in Rome, it needed to involve religious order which the church didn’t like.

Chinese Theatre (206 B.C.E.-1949)

280493_1 — 2024-09-24 19:51:16 UTC

In theatre for China, white meant evil while black meant good.

When the mongols invaded China, they had helped chinese theatre have a golden age.

Table and chairs were essential props in Beijing opera which in Beijing opera represented anything they wanted.

Japanese Theatre (14th century-1867)

280493_1 — 2024-09-24 20:02:28 UTC

Noh written plays are very short: example 1-2 pages, but in play form it took 30 minutes to 2 hours.

In Noh plays, the actors don’t say anything they focus on movement while people in the back actually speak for the characters.

The government soon banned women from performing, but they kept Kabuki running with male performers playing women roles.

Sanskrit (India/Hindu) Theatre (1500B.C.-8th century)

280493_1 — 2024-09-26 14:42:50 UTC

They were the first theatre to ever let female and male performers to perform.

Plays in Sanskritare not based on genre but the mood it evokes.

During plays in Sanskrit, a women’s movement suchas moving her nose a specific way tells vital information about her character.

Middle Ages (dark) Theatre (5th century-15th century)

280493_1 — 2024-09-26 19:42:02 UTC

Mystery and morality plays were the first european plays to unite religious and secular life in more than a thousand years.

Cycle plays are an ambitious genre of medival drama that depicts the whole history of the christian universe.

Cycle plays are sometimes known as mystery plays, because a “mystery” was another word for trade.

Renaissance (Spain, Italy, England) Theatre (1300-1600)

280493_1 — 2024-09-26 19:48:55 UTC

Renaissance in Italy was able to create 3 dimensional sets for plays.

Italian writers often wrote tragedies with happy endings which we call today tragicomedies.

In the late 1500s, gardens and banquet halls give way to permanment, purpose built theaters, possibly the first european since Roman times.

Elizabeth (Shakespeare) Theatre (1576-1603 or 1642)

280493_1 — 2024-09-26 19:55:05 UTC

There are Renaissance English plays and playwrights, theaters, troupes that existed mostly independent of Shakespeare.

Elizabeth I cracked down on religious and political plays which ended cycle plays.

Early English Renaissance plays weren’t staged in theaters, because free standing permanment theaters didn’t exist yet, at least not in England anyway.

North America (Early) Theatre (1752-1800)

280493_1 — 2024-09-26 20:03:32 UTC

After the war, plays by American writers become increasingly popular.

In some of the plays they made snobby, bad guys be British while the good guys were Americans which basically says Americans hate the British.

The astor place riots show anxieties who was allowed to produce theater and who was allowed to enjoy it.

Broadway (modern) Theatre (1924- still going on)

280493_1 — 2024-09-26 20:19:03 UTC

Broadway had become a home for serious plays by the midcentury.

Broadway was losin company due to movies and television which causes many theaters to close.

When it seems Broadway has become the place for serious American drama, New York is gonna open places not on Broadway which creates Off Broadway shows.