Answer:
HISTORY OF GREEK DRAMA
Early Greek theatre started around the 6th Century in the capital Athens with tragic plays being done at religious gatherings. From tragic plays, there was a shift to comedy. The earliest known playwrights such as Sophocles and Aristophanes were the 'founding fathers' of Greek drama.
Tragic plays were popular and one of the first genres of plays done in Greece then partly because of the rituals which were carried out in the worship of Dionysos which included sacrifice of goats and a ceremony that involved the wearing of masks, drinking rites that most times had worshippers losing control of themselves and behaving strangely, as if they were another person just like the way dramatists/actors were known to do.
Infact, Dionysos was referred to as the god of Greek theatre as it was in the worship of the god that Greek drama began. The ritual of the dance and singing was achievable because of an "aulos player" which made use of rhythms.
A theatre back then was in an open space that had beautiful acoustics and could hold a large number of male spectators. Early plays were free to attend and the plots of a tragic drama was most times based on Greek myths and legends. There was always a sense of good and bad, right and wrong, light and darkness and because of this constant conflict, there was no violence on the stage because it was not allowed and even the death of characters were spoken offstage and not witnessed by the audience.
Performers on the stage could act the characters of gods and much later, he would speak to the leader of the chorus who were all male and they would only sing and dance but not speak. The word "thespian" was gotten from Thespis and he was the one credited with the above innovation.
A play could only have a maximum of three actors on stage and because of this, one performer could take on multiple roles at the same time.
