The History of Theatre

Earliest reference to a competition for tragedies in Ancient Greece

524 BC

Greek playwright Euripides born. Wrote more than 90plays;18 still exist

about 484BC

Greek playwright Aristophanes writes “The Frogs”

about 405BC

Greek Dramareaches Rome

about 338 BC

re-built in stone in Athens,Greece

Theatre of Dionysus about 300 BC

First stone theatre built in Rome

55BC

 

740 AD

First Chinese Drama school founded

1300s

Mystery Play cycles emerge inEurope

 about 1370

Nō style of theatrestartsin Japan

Earliest record of Commedia dell’Arte in Italy

1545

 Spanish playwright Lope de Vega born. Probably wrote more plays than anyone else – more than 300

1562

1564 

William Shakespeareborn in

Stratford upon Avon

1567 

First public theatre opens in England

late 1500s

First indoor theatresin Western Europe

late 1500s 

First Operacomposed in Italy

 William Shakespeare writes “Romeoand Juliet”

about 1595

1598

The Globe theatre built in London. Shakespeare acted and his plays were performed here

 Japanese theatre style Kabuki starts

1603

Ben Jonson (English) writes “Volpone”

1606

 William Shakespeare

dies in London

1616

1637 

First opera house opens in Venice, Italy

 Theatres in England were closed bythe Puritans

1642-1660

Samuel Pepys records in his diary that he saw a Pulchinella (Punchand Judy) showin London

1662

1660s

Women act for thefirst time on the English stage

 French playwright

Molière writes “Le Misanthrope”

1666

1671 

Paris Opéra opens – and burns down two

years later

Aphra Benn, first known English female playwright, writes “The Rover”

1677

English playwright William Congreve writes “The Way

of the World”

1700

 German playwright Goethe begins the play “Faust”

about 1773

1788 

La Scala opera house opens in Milan, Italy

Gas lighting first used in London’s theatres

1817

1871 

Giuseppe Verdi writes the opera “Aida”

 Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen writes “A Doll’s House”

1879

1881

First electric lightsused in theatre(Savoy, London)

 

 Swedish playwrightAugust Strindberg writes

1888

“Miss Julie”

 Russian playwright Anton Checkhov writes “The Three Sisters”

1901

 Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco born. Wrote many surreal plays, such as “Rhinoceros” (1960)

1912

German playwright Bertolt Brecht writes “Mother Courage and Her Children”

1941

 English playwright John Osborne writes “Look Back in Anger”

1953

 Irish playwright Samuel Beckett writes “Waiting for Godot”

1953

American playwrightArthur Miller writes “TheCrucible”

1953

 English playwright Harold Pinter writes“The Caretaker”

1960

English playwright Tom Stoppard writes “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”

1967

1968

Stage censorship abolished in Great Britain

1969 Andrew Lloyd-Webber

and Tim Rice (British) write the musical “Jesus Christ – Superstar!”

1973 

Sydney opera house opens in Australia

“Bombay Dreams”opens - the first London musical with anall-Asian cast

2002