Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, typically actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence, and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", or "to observe"). The Theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and satyr play. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans.
The theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving and diverse art form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre, nude dancing, and acrobatics, to the staging of Plautus's broadly appealing comedies, to the high-style, verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca. In the West, the history of theatre dates back to Classical Antiquity. The origin of theatre in Western culture is often traced back to the Ancient Greeks. Theatre arose as a performance of ritual activities that did not require acting or singing, but it developed gradually into a representational art form. Theatre came to Western Europe from the East, probably via the Byzantine Empire and Moorish Spain. It arrived in Russia almost simultaneously with Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century. By the 12th century, it was well-established in cities like Novgorod and Kyiv. In England, the theatre began to develop in the 12th century with the morality plays of the religious orders.
By the 14th century, these had developed into interludes performed at festivals. The first full-length play in English is generally agreed to be The Play of the Sacrament, an adaptation of a French mystery play, by an unknown author. The development of professional theatre in England occurred slowly. In 1376, the first record of professional actors in England appeared, when a troupe from London performed at Windsor Castle for King Edward III. This was quickly followed by the establishment of the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), one of the two major acting companies in Elizabethan England, by the Royal Charter in 1594. The other company, the Admiral's Men, was founded around the same time but did not receive a Royal Charter until 1608. These two companies dominated professional theatre in England throughout the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Theatre began to be formalized as an academic discipline in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
The first English theatre school was the Drama School of London, founded by Richard Burbage in 1596. Other notable early theatre schools include the Acting Company of London (founded by William Poel in 1909) and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (founded in 1904). Theatre in England flourished under the patronage of the monarchs, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth I. Many famous playwrights, including William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, were part of the Elizabethan theatre scene. Other notable playwrights of the period include Ben Jonson, John Webster, Thomas Heywood, and Thomas Dekker. The English theatre scene continued to thrive in the early 17th century, despite the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642. The theatres were closed by the Puritans in 1642 but reopened after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Notable playwrights of the Restoration period include John Dryden, George Etherege, William Wycherley, and Aphra Behn.
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