Greek Theatre

When were dramas performed?

At religious festivals

What is the Lenaea?

Dionysian festival with tragic and comedic drama competitions, but comedy more important

What is rural Dionysia?

Local dionysian festivals in the deme

What is connected within the City Dionysia?

Coming of spring, reopening of sea lanes and the festival of the City Dionysia

Who organised the City Dionysia?

eponymous archon

What is a choregos?

Financial provider for the play

What is a dithyramb?

Choral dance in honour of Dionysus

Aristotle on Judges of Drama

‘not to be like the sort of girl who can only remember the fellow she slept with last’

What is the theatron?

The area where the audience sat

What is the prohedria?

The front row of the audience, with a seat reserved for the priest of Dionysus

What is the orchestra?

Where the chorus of the play performed

What are the eisodos, or parados

The ways onto the stage

What is the skene?

Building behind the stage where actors got changed

what is the wheel platform?

Wooden platform on wheels that usually depicted indoor scene, perhaps of character who died offstage

what is a mechane?

lifts figures above the stage

who was the actor that stepped out from the chorus?

Thespis

what is a satyr play?

a light hearted tragedy

what are kothornoi?

leather boots worn by actors

why were masks used by the chorus?

to make expressions more visible

Aristotle on the characteristics of a tragic hero

‘involve a person who is not outstanding in either virtue or just behaviour, who falls into bad fortune through not vice or wickedness, but through some mistake’

Who is the famous vase named after?

Pronomos