were and remain most famous for

is their amazing theatre,

their tragedies and comedies

that are still played on the stages of the world

all over the planet today.

If you go to Athens today,

if you go up to the Acropolis.

You can actually see the horseshoe shape

of the Theater of Dionysus.

Now that's a stone building with stone seats

surrounding the central stone circular stage.

That actually wasn't built until the fourth century B.C.

The second of the two great centuries

of the Athenian Imperial democracy.

But we know that the same place was already used

in the fifth century it's just they erected

wooden seats, much as we would today

for outdoor performances in Regents Park.

So when did the Athenians go to their theater well,

they went to two great festivals a year.

These festivals were for the God Dionysus.

So they're are called the 'Great Dionysia'.

The point was to perform plays

as part of worship for the god.

So in a sense it was a religious festival

like Greek Easter still is today

very important full of processions and Ceremonials

it was as much like the

Super Bowl

or Commonwealth Games.

And the plays were put on in three days running.

You had three tragedians compete against each other

and three comic writers.

But they were preceded by

enormously elaborate festivals

and enormously elaborate rituals for the gods.

It was on the cusp between a civic ceremony

because all the most important

men in the city were there

and also it had this massive religious element

so there were many sacrifices.

So who actually performed these plays?

They're written by aristocratic Athenians usually

who've had the benefits of lots of education

so they can write tragedy.

The chorus is by ordinary amateur citizen youths,

it's probably actually part of their military training

because dancing together and

reciting things together is actually

very very similar to military drill.

We actually think that this is part of their training

so that they can learn to move together

in perfect harmony.

The actors were professionals

and very very highly trained,

they often came from the same families

as the tragedians who wrote the plays

you had whole families whos

sort of professional business

was tragic theatre.

And they were trained

from boyhood in vocal delivery.

What is more important than in an open air space

the size of the theatre of dionysus

than getting your voice to hit

the very very back row

as well as for the people nearer the front

to hear you when you're wearing a mask

and you also have to sing.

People don't realise quite how much

of ancient Greek tragedy was sung.

It's somewhere nearer opera and ballet

combined with spoken theatre

than people tend to assume today,

it's sort of tragic musical theatre.