Summary: This program covers the purpose, design, and uses of the ekkyklema for showing the victims and perpetrators of off-stage violence; the deus ex machina, a crane mechanism to suspend gods above the stage; Charonian steps, for ghosts from the underworld; and other means of entrance and exit. It also explains the reasons for New Comedy, its audience, and its physical requirements.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: In the 50 years separating Aeschylus from the later works of Euripides, theater changed: plays had been performed in honor of the god Dionysus and for the enjoyment of spectators; now they were targeted at spectators who took pleasure in the spectacle itself. Where once the text itself set the stage and described the scene, sets came into use-at first to stimulate imagination, later to imitate...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program looks at the theatres of Herodus Atticus, Epidauros, Corinth (where Arion is said to have taught the dithyramb), and many others to explain the design of the ancient theater, the synthesis of art forms that was ancient Greek drama, the origins of tragedy, the audience in classical times, the comparative roles of writer/director and actors, and the use of the surrounding landscape...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Tragedy upholds traditional values and comedy attacks them-which explain much of the change from Aristophanes to Plautus, from Old Comedy to New, reflecting as it does the change from Athenian democracy to Roman totalitarianism. Wary of creating permanent spaces that might be used for mass meetings, the Romans constructed temporary wooden structures to house their theatrical productions. Since...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Understanding Greek tragedy, not through post-Ibsenist, post-modernist, post-Method eyes but in terms of what the ancient playwright may have intended, requires going beyond the text to the staging. For the staging defines the relationship between chorus and actors, between actors and audience, and between playwright and play. Using the theatre at Epidauros as an example-it was built a century...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009