The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years.

While
performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction
between theatre as an art form and entertainment and theatrical or performative elements in
other activities. The history of theatre is primarily concerned with the origin and subsequent
development of the theatre as an autonomous activity. Since classical Athens in the 6th century
BC, vibrant traditions of theatre have flourished in cultures across the world.[1]

Contents

 1Origins
 2European theatre
o 2.1Greek theatre
o 2.2Roman theatre
o 2.3Transition and early Medieval theatre, 500–1050
o 2.4High and late Medieval theatre, 1050–1500
o 2.5Commedia dell'arte & Renaissance
o 2.6English Elizabethan theatre
o 2.7Spanish Golden age theatre
o 2.8French Baroque theatre
o 2.9Restoration comedy
o 2.10Restoration spectacular
o 2.11Neoclassical theatre
o 2.12Nineteenth-century theatre
o 2.13Twentieth-century theatre
 3American theatre
o 3.11752 to 1895 Romanticism
o 3.21895 to 1945 Realism
o 3.31945 to 1990 Modernism
 4African theatre
o 4.1North African theatre
 4.1.1Ancient Egyptian quasi-theatrical events
o 4.2West African theatre
 4.2.1Ghanaian theatre
 4.2.2Yoruba theatre
o 4.3African Diaspora theatre
 4.3.1African-American theatre
 5Asian theatre
o 5.1Indian theatre
 5.1.1Overview of Indian theatre
 5.1.2Sanskrit theatre
 5.1.3Traditional Indian theatre
 5.1.4Kathakali
 5.1.5Modern Indian theatre
o 5.2Chinese theatre
 5.2.1Shang theatre
 5.2.2Han and Tang theatre
 5.2.3Song and Yuan theatre
o 5.3Philippine theatre
o 5.4Thai theatre
o 5.5Khmer and Malay theatre
 o 5.6Japanese theatre
 5.6.1Noh
 5.6.2Bunraku
 5.6.3Kabuki
 5.6.4Butoh
o 5.7Persian theatre
 5.7.1Medieval Islamic theatre
 6See also
 7Notes
 8References
 9Sources
 10External links

Origins[edit]
Theatre arose as a performance of ritual activities that did not require initiation on the part of the
spectator. This similarity of early theatre to ritual is negatively attested by Aristotle, who in
his Poetics defined theatre in contrast to the performances of sacred mysteries: theatre did not
require the spectator to fast, drink the kykeon, or march in a procession; however theatre did
resemble the sacred mysteries in the sense that it brought purification and healing to the
spectator by means of a vision, the theama. The physical location of such performances was
accordingly named theatron.[2]
According to the historians Oscar Brockett and Franklin Hildy, rituals typically include elements
that entertain or give pleasure, such as costumes and masks as well as skilled performers. As
societies grew more complex, these spectacular elements began to be acted out under non-
ritualistic conditions. As this occurred, the first steps towards theatre as an autonomous activity
were being taken.[3]

European theatre[edit]
Greek theatre[edit]

The best-preserved example of a classical Greek theatre, the Theatre of Epidaurus, has a
circular orchêstra and probably gives the best idea of the original shape of the Athenian theatre, though it
dates from the 4th century BC.[4]

Main articles: Theatre of Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek comedy, and Satyr play

Greek theatre, most developed in Athens, is the root of the Western tradition; theatre is in origin
a Greek word. It was part of a broader culture of theatricality and performance in classical
Greece that included festivals, religious rituals, politics, law, athletics and
gymnastics, music, poetry, weddings, funerals, and symposia.[5][a] Participation in the city-state's
many festivals—and attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a
participant in the theatrical productions) in particular—was an important part of citizenship.[6] Civic
participation also involved the evaluation of the rhetoric of orators evidenced in performances in
the law-court or political assembly, both of which were understood as analogous to the theatre
and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic vocabulary.[7] The theatre of ancient
Greece consisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play.[8]
Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an
important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state.[9][b] Having emerged sometime during the
6th century BC, it flowered during the 5th century BC (from the end of which it began to spread
throughout the Greek world) and continued to be popular until the beginning of the Hellenistic
period.[10][c] No tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were
performed in during the 5th century have survived.[11][d] We have complete
texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.[12][e] The origins of tragedy remain obscure,
though by the 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions (agon) held as part of festivities
celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility).[13] As contestants in the City Dionysia's
competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to
present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story
or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play.[14][f] The performance of
tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records (didaskaliai)
begin from 501 BC, when the satyr play was introduced.[15] [g] Most Athenian tragedies dramatise
events from Greek mythology, though The Persians—which stages the Persian response to
news of their military defeat at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC—is the notable exception in the
surviving drama.[16][h] When Aeschylus won first prize for it at the City Dionysia in 472 BC, he had
been writing tragedies for more than 25 years, yet its tragic treatment of recent history is the
earliest example of drama to survive.[17] More than 130 years later, the
philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work
of dramatic theory—his Poetics (c. 335 BC). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three
periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle Comedy", and "New Comedy". Old Comedy survives today
largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely
lost (preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis).
New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of plays by Menander.
Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of laughable people that involves some kind of error
or ugliness that does not cause pain or destruction.[18]

Roman theatre[edit]
Main article: Theatre of ancient Rome

Roman theatre in Benevento, Italy

Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans. The Roman
historian Livy wrote that the Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BC, with a
performance by Etruscan actors.[19] Beacham argues that