Ancient Roman theatre: everything you wanted to know

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine. What kind of spectacle would they have seen? And did the drama performed on stage reflect the politics, society, or culture of the day?

Emily Briffitt and historian Jessica Clark peer behind the metaphorical curtain of ancient Rome's theatres to explore the plays, Playwrights and performances that entertain the Empire. Today we have lots of lovely listener questions for you, Jessica. We are going to be talking all about ancient Roman theatre. And we need to start where the Romans started. What were the origins of theatre in ancient Rome?

So this sounds like a nice simple question. It's actually quite a difficult question, really, finding the origins of Rom theatre. because they're not particularly straightforward. Certainly we've got Ancient Greek theatre is a very important starting point for Roman theatre. We want to think about Athenian theatre on the slopes of the Acropolis.

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