Year 10 Drama Comedy to Tragedy

Characteristics Activity Greek Theatre

a) Describe the layout of an ancient Greek theatre, label the diagram below.
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b) Define the following parts of the theatre explaining what their functions are in performance:
- Orchestra:
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- Parodos:
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- Skene:
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- Theatron:
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c) Greek comedies generally did not use a defined rhythmic beat or music to accompany the
dialogue, yet the tragedies did. However in both comedies and tragedies, choral passages
were used. Traditionally, lyric speech used iambic trimeter (a beat). Find examples of
dialogue from one Greek Tragedy and one Greek Comedy.
Tragedy example:
Comedy example:
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d) Explain the role of the chorus in Greek theatre and give an example of chorus dialogue from
a Greek play.
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e) Who usually performed in Greek plays? Why?

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f)

What was the inspiration for early Greek theatre (what were the plays usually about)?
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g) List three Greek playwrights, the plays they wrote and when they wrote them.
Playwright:
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Plays:

Playwright:
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Plays:

Playwright:
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Plays:

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h) Greek plays had a particular structure. The basic structure of a Greek tragedy is fairly
simple. After a prologue spoken by one or more characters, the chorus enters, singing
and dancing. Scenes then alternate between spoken sections (dialogue between
characters, and between characters and chorus) and sung sections (during which the
chorus danced). Give a description for each of the following sections of a Greek
tragedy:
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Prologue:
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Parados:
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First episode:
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First stasimon:
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*** For the rest of the play, there is alternation between episodes and stasima, until the final
scene, called the...
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Exodus:
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Useful sites for information:

http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110tech/theater.html#timeline