The early plays by Greeks were tragedies consisted of acted episodes performed by one actor who also conversed with the leader of the chorus. During this action, chorus members would react in pattern movements and gestures to what was happening. Early Greek tragedies became very elaborate and dramatic. These performances developed into festivals. These festivals covered several days of the end of March, and were open to all Greeks. The state financed the theater building and also provided its maintenance, paid fees to the actors and also provided prizes for the dramatic contests. The help of Greek poetry created these plays. The Greeks would perform dances before they started to form Theater productions. These dancing and singing festivals developed into acting. This is where Greeks got their idea t

Greek theatrical costumes were brightly covered. This was so the audience could see the actors since they were so far away. Another reason for bright colors was to aid character recognition. Certain characters had certain costume colors. The queen's costumes was always purple, the traditional color of royalty, so that the spectators who had no programs could easily recognize the characters. The character who was depressed or unhappy would wear the color black. Costume coloring explained the actor's moods. These actors identity was basically concealed because their costumes covered up their bodies except for their hands and ankles.

Today theater has become very popular. People can do see plays on and off Broadway. Greek and Roman ideas are still used in some of these plays.

The most popular plays presented in Rome in the golden age were comedies based on Greek New Comedy. Although the actors in the Roman plays spoke Latin, their plays did consist of Greek originals. Even the character names used in these Roman comedies were Greek. Roman comedy writers quickly learned that disguising as Greeks, those they wanted to insult, was the way to avoid the past. The Romans borrowed many Greek comedy conventions, including that men playing women roles. Mime remained the only theatrical genre in which Roman women were allowed to take part in. Greek stock characters mostly populated Roman stages. Bragging soldiers, parasites, stupid old men, and prostitutes were some of the most common types of actors. The clever slave was the more popular in Roman Theater then Greek Theater. Nearly every Roman family had at least one slave. No Roman comedy could be written without a slave in it. In every play, the slave is the chief character, the only one with the brains, who succeeds in the fooling of all the people all of the time. One Greek invention that was ignored by the Romans was the use of masks. Roman actors used their own facial expressions to show character, mood and emotion. This custom was formed because of the mimed; they did not wear masks. Each Roman actor played a single character per a play, in contrast to Greek actors who often played two or more. So Roman actors had the opportunity to develop and perfect their characters to a high degree. They probably felt that hiding their faces behind masks limited the range of emotion.

The costuming of the actors in the New Comedy r

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