There is a hill which was very important for the people of ancient Athens. It is in the centre of the city and has many temples and special buildings on top. It's called the Acropolis, which means 'the city on the hill'. At the bottom of this hill on the southern side is an ancient theatre, called the Theatre of Dionysus. It was here that we believe the first plays were ever performed.

There was wooden seating for thousands of people. The front row of seats was mainly for the priests. The plays began as a religious festival held in honour of the god Dionysus.

The Chorus

In the centre of the theatre was an area called the 'orkestra'. A group of performers called the 'chorus' sang, chanted and danced in the orchestra area. It is from this Greek word that we get the modern English word orchestra. Can you guess why?

The people in the chorus were performing in the play, but in a different way to the actors. The chorus had between 6 and 15 or so people in it, and they never went onto the stage, but stayed in the orchestra. The chorus told the audience about the characters and helped to tell the story of the play.

The actors

Behind the orchestra was the stage, which was a wooden platform. It was on this platform that the actors performed. On the platform was a small hut, called the 'skene'. This was used as a building and actors could walk in and out of the door in the front.

A famous writer of plays called Sophokles decided to paint the front of the skene building with a nature scene for one of his plays. This was the invention of scenery on stage, which is where the English word 'scenery' comes from originally.

Behind the stage there was sometimes a crane called the 'mekhane'. Actors could be hung from the crane to play gods or monsters flying through the air. These were early special effects!

The audience

In front of the stage and orchestra was the seating. The seating was in the shape of a semi-circle, with rows of seats one above the other making stepped rows of seating. The back rows were high up, and from there you were quite far from the stage. Everyone could hear the actors speaking though because the sound carried well because of the shape of the theatre.

The plays

How many actors are there in films and plays today? It was different in ancient Greece. Early plays had only a chorus and one actor! The actor sometimes spoke to the leader of the chorus. Then there were plays written with a chorus and two actors, and then three actors were introduced. Three was the most actors in any ancient Greek play!

All of the actors were men, who wore costumes and masks. They played all the characters in the play including those of women and children.

Tragedy and comedy were two very popular types of play in ancient Greece. Competitions were held in many parts of Greece to give prizes to the best plays. One such competition was the 'Great Dionysia' held every year in Athens, at the theatre of Dionysus. The competition would last a whole day. The judges and audience would watch all the plays and award a prize to the writer of the one they decided was best at the end of the day.

The plays were written down and copies were kept of many of them. As time passed most of these copies were eventually lost. But there are many plays that were not lost. We still have copies of them today, two and a half thousand years later! The most famous Greek plays are still considered to be some of the best ever written. They are still performed on stage and made into television and radio programmes and films.