Provides a general account of the Roman theater and its audience, and records some of the results of the author's experiments in constructing a full-scale replica stage based upon the wall paintings at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and producing Roman plays upon it.

Drawing on insights from various disciplines (philology, archaeology, art) as well as from performance and reception studies, this volume shows how a heightened awareness of performance can enhance our appreciation of Greek and Roman theatre.

The Roman Stage (1964) gives a connected account of the drama of ancient Rome in its historical setting. Using original source material, whole plays as well as fragments, of tragedies, comedies and farces, it traces the development of theatre in Rome, and notes the historical importance of these plays – the Elizabeth world looked back with reverence on the days ‘when Roscius was an actor in Rome’ (Hamlet). It also examines the physical conditions of drama in Rome – the types of theatres, and their place in the lives of the Roman inhabitants.

Roman tragedies were written for over three hundred years, but only fragments remain of plays that predate the works of Seneca in the mid-first century C.E., making it difficult to define the role of tragedy in ancient Roman culture. Nevertheless, in this pioneering book, Mario Erasmo draws on all the available evidence to trace the evolution of Roman tragedy from the earliest tragedians to the dramatist Seneca and to explore the role played by Roman culture in shaping the perception of theatricality on and off the stage. Performing a philological analysis of texts informed by semiotic theory and audience reception, Erasmo pursues two main questions in this study: how does Roman tragedy become metatragedy, and how did off-stage theatricality come to compete with the theatre? Working chronologically, he looks at how plays began to incorporate a rhetoricized reality on stage, thus pointing to their own theatricality. And he shows how this theatricality, in turn, came to permeate society, so that real events such as the assassination of Julius Caesar took on theatrical overtones, while Pompey's theatre opening and the lavish spectacles of the emperor Nero deliberately blurred the lines between reality and theatre. Tragedy eventually declined as a force in Roman culture, Erasmo suggests, because off-stage reality became so theatrical that on-stage tragedy could no longer compete.

Packed full of new archival evidence that reveals the interconnected world of music theatre during the 'Classical era', this interdisciplinary study investigates key locations, genres, music, and musicians. Austin Glatthorn explores the extent to which the Holy Roman Empire delineated and networked a cultural entity that found expression through music for the German stage. He maps an extensive network of Central European theatres; reconstructs the repertoire they shared; and explores how print media, personal correspondence, and their dissemination shaped and regulated this music. He then investigates the development of German melodrama and examines how articulations of the Holy Roman Empire on the musical stage expressed imperial belonging. Glatthorn engages with the most recent historical interpretations of the Holy Roman Empire and offers quantitative, empirical analysis of repertoire supported by conventional close readings to illustrate a shared culture of music theatre that transcended traditional boundaries in music scholarship.

Long ago, when gods and heroes walked the earth in triumph and tragedy, true love and epic deeds were set among the stars... In the city of ancient Corinth, Bellerophon grew up in the corridors of the palace, haunted by his father’s gruesome death, and distrusted and ignored by the rest of his own family. He now spends his life in the shadows of society, and that is how he prefers it. However, the Gods of Olympus have something more in mind for him. After a violent incident in the mountains, Bellerophon is banished from his home for all time. His path leads him to the court of an aged king in Tiryns where he is welcomed at first, but due to the spiteful queen, he is wrongly accused of another crime in a world that seems endlessly cruel. Dejected and uncaring of what happens to him and his hateful life, Bellerophon is sent across the sea to the court of King Iobates of Lykia. At the urging of his seer, the king welcomes Bellerophon as an honoured guest in his home, until he discovers the reason for his arrival. Seeking a way to be rid of Bellerophon, without violating the sacred laws of Zeus, King Iobates commands that he complete three impossible tasks to prove his innocence or bring about his death. With the world set against him, Bellerophon welcomes his imminent end. That is, until he meets the king’s daughter, Philonoe, the only person who has ever believed in him, and whose father has kept a dark secret from for many years. With the Gods and Lykia’s princess on his side, can Bellerophon prove his innocence and help save Lykia and its people? Will he finally accept the fate that the Gods have pressed upon him? Or will he succumb to the despair and hopelessness that have dogged him all of his life? Only by facing his deepest fears and a creature more terrible than any other of the Gods’ creation can Bellerophon truly succeed and become the hero he is meant to be... The Reluctant Hero is an epic retelling of the story of Bellerophon and the Chimera from Greek mythology. It is the fourth book in the Mythologia fantasy series by best-selling and award-winning author and historian, Adam Alexander Haviaras. If you enjoy books by Madeline Miller, Stephen Fry, Natalie Haynes or Jennifer Saint then you will love the Mythologia series. Read The Reluctant Hero today and witness the rise of one of the greatest heroes of the ancient world!

An exciting series that provides students with direct access to the ancient world by offering new translations of extracts from its key texts.

Roman comedy evolved early in the war-torn 200s BCE. Troupes of lower-class and slave actors traveled through a militarized landscape full of displaced persons and the newly enslaved; together, the actors made comedy to address mixed-class, hybrid, multilingual audiences. Surveying the whole of the Plautine corpus, where slaves are central figures, and the extant fragments of early comedy, this book is grounded in the history of slavery and integrates theories of resistant speech, humor, and performance. Part I shows how actors joked about what people feared - natal alienation, beatings, sexual abuse, hard labor, hunger, poverty - and how street-theater forms confronted debt, violence, and war loss. Part II catalogues the onstage expression of what people desired: revenge, honor, free will, legal personhood, family, marriage, sex, food, free speech; a way home, through memory; and manumission, or escape - all complicated by the actors' maleness. Comedy starts with anger.