Stage Design

Ancient Greek Theaters are commonly comprised of 3 main parts:

The development of the typical Greek theater that we know today occurred in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. The earlier theaters had a variety of forms, while theaters in the 4th century tended to conform to a common theme. By the 4th century, theaters were hemispherical in shape and comprised of 3 sections, a cavea, an orchestra, and a skene. The cavea, or the viewing portion of the theater, was often built into a hillside to reduce costs and provide good acoustics. The hillside that was chosen had a large impact on the composition of the theater and the rest of the construction. Some hillsides were steep and resulted in an extremely steep seating area, while others were more flat. The slope of the hillside affected the acoustics and therefore the location of the orchestra. The cavea also started out with wooded seating in the earlier and smaller theaters, later progressing into the permanent stone seating we see remaining today. 

The orchestra was most commonly a circular area at the base of the cavea where performances would take place. The orchestra was placed so that the actors could be heard even from the farthest seats in the cavea. The common circular shape of the orchestra presents a controversial idea of the types of dances and performances that took place. Many think that the dances were performed in a circular fashion because of the circular shape, while circular dances could very well occur in other shaped areas and other dances could be performed in circular ones. 

The skene was a building where the background of the play could be displayed. It was often made of wood and so little remains of them today, while later theaters started to build them of stone. The size and shape of the skene changed drastically over time, starting as a small building to display backgrounds and progressing into a large elaborate building with multiple doors and stories to be utilized in the scenes themselves. Multiple stories allowed for actors to interact from different places, adding more drama to the plays. The addition of multiple doors allowed actors to enter and exit from more places, enhancing the drama.