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We owe the concept of modern theatre to the ancient Greeks (theatre – theatron). The first theatre was built in Attica in about 550 BC. Plays were in the open air and audiences could be seated on a hillside. The next step was for wooden seats and then stone seats. The entertainment could be plays or dance. The circular space was called the orchestra (orkeomai – dance). This gradually bacame a stage.
The players would use a tent to the rear for changing (in the circus this is now called the ring-doors!) called a skene, which then derived the word scenery. This was hidden from the audience by a decorated and pillared piece of architecture called the proskenion, from which comes the word proscenium.
The amphi-theatron with the audience around three sides grew from the original plan (this is now the old to modern circus concept!). Of course some academics and even persons within and attached to circus wonder back to ancient Rome and the Colosseum for the roots of circus. Perhaps it was but there is a huge time gap between 200 A.D. and the Colosseum and Philip Astley’s fine inspiration in the 18th Century. This is what I prefer to be the origines of circus. He devised the theatre shape even called it a theatre with actors and a stage. All touring shows under canvas have had the traditional amphitheatre shape and academics and followers do no service to hard working artistes with, what I consider, a nonsense point of view.
The first public theatre in London was in Shoreditch in 1576. It was of wood and was the work of James Burage, who before he became an actor was a carpenter and joiner, so that he new about construction. This theatre was still open to the sky and plays were performed only during the hours of daylight.
Under the English puritans theatres were closed in 1642 and it was not until 1660 they became alive again.
The theatre plans: Top left a Greek aphitheatre circa 400 B.C. (very close to a circus lay-out). Top right an Elizabethan Playhouse. Centre left; Georgian theatre 1775. Centre right; the ‘picture frame’ stage after 1776. Below; the modern amphi-theatre that is really a return to the original concept and the design of circus for the past 200 years.
