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Theater History Illustrated Timeline

by Charles Chao

Began: 600 B.C.

Significant Playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes

  • 534 B.C. First thespian (actor)
  • Development of stage
  • Women didn't act, men played women's roles.

To today!

Hollywood sign

Began: Mid 1700's

Significant Playwrights: O'Neill, Williams, Wilder, Hellman, Saroyan, Miller, Simon, Hansberry, Henley

  • Traveling theatrical families arrived in the colonies in the mid 1700's.
  • America lacked it's own style until the early 20th century
  • Hollywood becoming the world film center brought attention to American Theater.

9. American Theater

Bunraku puppet

Began: Unknown

Significant Playwrights: None

  • Development of Noh, a style rooted in religion and ceromony.
  • Development of Bunraku, which uses intricate wooden puppets
  • Development of Kabuki, a mixture of the first two. Originally for women.
  • Both genders wore Kimonos

8. Eastern Theater

Wycherley

Began: 1660

Significant Playwrights: Wycherley, Congreve, Farquhar, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Gilbert and Sullivan, Wilde, Shaw

  • Roofs on stages allowed for more elaborate scenery
  • Stages on incline, back wall replaced with shutters, allowing for multiple scene changes
  • Acting took on natural movement, not stiff

7. Restoration

Shakespeare

Began: 1600's

Significant Playwrights: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson

  • Court Plays - geared to a more intellectual audience.
  • Playhouses - octagonal stage.
  • 1660's - more theaters are built after being destroyed in the civil war of 1642.

6. Elizabethan

Commedia Dell'arte Masks

Began: 1300's

Significant Playwrights: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon

  • Commedia dellarte': improvised acting created.
  • Proscenium arch added to stage plays.
  • Plays performed by traveling companies.

5. Renaissance

Medieval play

Began: 500 A.D.

Significant Playwrights: The church wrote most plays

  • Used theater as a means of worship and instruction.
  • Plays not by churches drew criticism and were repressed.
  • Mostly in Latin.

4. Medieval

Roman Masks

Began: 41 A.D.

Significant Playwrights: Plautus, Terence, Seneca

  • Theaters built flat
  • Chorus and orchestra no longer used
  • Focused on stage
  • Playwrights did not benefit from the architecture of the time.

3. Roman

Greek Theater

2. Greek

Osiris

1. The First Performances

Began: 2000 B.C.

Significant Playwrights: I-Kher-Wofret of Abydos

  • First record of a theatrical performance was for a three day play.
  • Was recorded in stone.
  • Used realistic battles and high ceremony to reenact the murder, dismemberment, and resurrection of the god Osiris.
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