Actor

The exclusively male actors in the theatre of ancient Greece performed in three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play.

Records show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, and other entertainments were very popular.

Small nomadic bands of actors traveled around Europe throughout the period, performing wherever they could find an audience; there is no evidence that they produced anything but crude scenes.

[7] Traditionally, actors were not of high status; therefore, in the Early Middle Ages, traveling acting troupes were often viewed with distrust.

In many parts of Europe, traditional beliefs of the region and time meant actors could not receive a Christian burial.

In the Early Middle Ages, churches in Europe began staging dramatized versions of biblical events.

The Italian tradition of Commedia dell'arte, as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court, also contributed to the shaping of public theatre.

The development of the theatre and opportunities for acting ceased when Puritan opposition to the stage banned the performance of all plays within London.

The newspapers, private clubs, pubs, and coffee shops rang with lively debates evaluating the relative merits of the stars and the productions.

[11] Irving was renowned for his Shakespearean roles, and for such innovations as turning out the house lights so that attention could focus more on the stage and less on the audience.

His company toured across Britain, as well as Europe and the United States, demonstrating the power of star actors and celebrated roles to attract enthusiastic audiences.

The solution was corporate ownership of chains of theatres, such as by the Theatrical Syndicate, Edward Laurillard, and especially The Shubert Organization.

By catering to tourists, theaters in large cities increasingly favored long runs of highly popular plays, especially musicals.

[3] When an eighteen-year Puritan prohibition of drama was lifted after the English Restoration of 1660, women began to appear on stage in England.

[20] In Japan, onnagata, or men taking on female roles, were used in kabuki theatre when women were banned from performing on stage during the Edo period; this convention continues.

For example, the stage role of Peter Pan is traditionally played by a woman, as are most principal boys in British pantomime.

In 2007, Cate Blanchett was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Jude Quinn, a fictionalized representation of Bob Dylan in the 1960s, in I'm Not There.

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon famously posed as women to escape gangsters in the Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot.

Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams have each appeared in a hit comedy film (Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire, respectively) in which they played most scenes dressed as a woman.

Eddie Redmayne was nominated for an Academy Award for playing Lili Elbe (a trans woman) in 2015's The Danish Girl.

While the majority of them were seldom employed in speaking roles but rather for dancing, there was a minority of actresses in Rome employed in speaking roles, and also those who achieved wealth, fame and recognition for their art, such as Eucharis, Dionysia, Galeria Copiola and Fabia Arete, and they also formed their own acting guild, the Sociae Mimae, which was evidently quite wealthy.

While women did not begin to perform onstage in England until the second half of the 17th century, they did appear in Italy, Spain and France from the late 16th-century onward.

[25] Within the profession, the re-adoption of the neutral term dates to the post-war period of the 1950s and '60s, when the contributions of women to cultural life in general were being reviewed.

[25] The guide's authors stated that "actress comes into the same category as authoress, comedienne, manageress, 'lady doctor', 'male nurse' and similar obsolete terms that date from a time when professions were largely the preserve of one sex (usually men)."

[35] Pioneering film directors in Europe and the United States recognized the different limitations and freedoms of the mediums of stage and screen by the early 1910s.

Due to the work of directors such as D W Griffith, cinematography became less stage-like, and the then-revolutionary close-up shot allowed subtle and naturalistic acting.

In America, D.W. Griffith's company Biograph Studios, became known for its innovative direction and acting, conducted to suit the cinema rather than the stage.

This is mainly attributed to the influx of emigrants from the Weimar Republic, "including film directors, producers, cameramen, lighting and stage technicians, as well as actors and actresses".

[36] "Since film captures even the smallest gesture and magnifies it..., cinema demands a less flamboyant and stylized bodily performance from the actor than does the theater."

Audio drama, whether newly produced or OTR classics, can be found on CDs, cassette tapes, podcasts, webcasts, and conventional broadcast radio.