A. The nature of spaces utilised during the chosen periods.

The roots of ancient Greek theatre lie in the cult of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility, one of the Olympian deities honoured in the Greek world. In myth, Dionysus' followers were satyrs, drunken half-animal, half-human creatures, and maenads, or "mad women". In ancient Greek times, Dionysus' followers sometimes assumed these roles (pretended to be satyrs or maenads) in their religious rituals. Members of the Dionysian cult always told of the myths centred on their god by singing and dancing out their stories together as a chorus. Always, that is, until one day (about 2,500 years ago) in the sixth century BC, when a man named Thespis, a Dionysian priest, stepped out of the chorus and took on the role of an actor. Thespis acted out a Dionysiac myth through spoken dialogue rather than a song, creating Greek tragedy. He is considered to be the first actor and the first playwright.

After this new form of performance had been introduced to the general public, it quickly gained popularity. Its popularity leads Pisistratus,

The Restoration period attempted to combine older English staging traditions with neo-classical practices and improved machinery. The auditorium was divided into a pit and two or three galleries, the bottom tier divided into boxes, the top given to benches seating 500-600 of an audience. At Drury Lane the distance between the stage and the back of the auditorium was 36 feet. The thrust down stage acting area extending to auditorium was about 20 feet deep at Drury Lane. Approached through one or two pairs of stage or proscenium doors with balconies above them. Illuminated by chandeliers over forestage and possible footlights, the preferred acting area being well light and bringing the actors in closer to the audience. The upstage scenic area was separated from the acting area by a proscenium arch: about 25 feet at Drury Lane (painted scene at the back, then combination of flats or shutters set along the sides in grooves to work like sliding doors. To change scenery, the first pair was slide into the wings exposing the next behind them. Sometimes there would be 3 to 4 stacked up). There was also accommodating traps, machines for rising up ghosts, or engulfing the wicked, pulley systems and flying machines. The scenes were lit by candles fixed in vertical rows behind each wing position, for stock and aesthetic reasons. The audience of Restoration theatre originally appealed to the upper aristocrat audience, however by 1700 the theatre was beginning to appeal to the lower classes by incorporating songs, dances, pantomime, variety acts, and animal pieces into the night’s entertainment. The interior and exterior scenes employed wings to complete the setting, and varied the shutters with an occasional scene `in relief', made up of wings, cutouts, and a backcloth. The use of backcloths, however, was governed by the lack of flying-space above the stage, a feature inherited from the tennis court theatres of the early Restoration period. The theatres due the larger intake of audiences had to become bigger, as seen when comparing Drury Lane’s seating 1674 – 650 seats, 1790 – 2,300 seats. The plays were oriented toward this specific audience, so the absence of lower classes is not surprising. The theatre became a place to be seen, and these people loved nothing more then showing off their opulence. The plays had devolved into bawdy, noisy events, the audience usually creating more drama then the actors. All in all, though, it was a happy time, a time when the theatre prospered.

an Athenian tyrant, to construct a theatre, for the performance of tragedy, in Dionysus' honour. Under Pisistratus' rule, tragedy turned into a competition for the best play in 538 BC. Soon thereafter, these theatrical performances gained new importance and meaning, and in 534 BC the first festival of Dionysus was instituted. The first recorded victory at the Dionysian Festival occurred that same year when Thespis, also a playwright, won the event. The Dionysian festival represented not only an opportunity for the anci

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