Masterpieces of Greek and Roman Theater

Comedy: Greece and Rome to Hollywood

Web Resources for Comedy

Theater of Dionysos, South Slope of the Acropolis, Athens

Art, Architecture, and Material Evidence for Greek and Roman Theater

Introduction to the ancient theater (at Didaskalia)

Dr. J's Illustrated Greek Theater

Information about, and images and plans of, the Theater of Dionysus in the Perseus Database

Dr. J's Illustrated South Slope of the Acropolis: The Theater of Dionysos

Ancient Theatre Archive: A Virtual Reality Tour of Greek and Roman Theatre Architecture (Whitman College)

Greek and Roman Mask timeline

Skenotheke: Images of the Ancient Stage has images of theaters, vase-paintings, statues, mosaics, frescoes, and other monuments. Highly recommended.

Roman Theaters, images of some Roman theaters (Lacus Curtius)

Theatron: Virtual Reality, Multimedia, Cultural Heritage

Connections Between Ancient Greek Theater and Religion (CTCWeb) weaves texts from Perseus with images and study questions to help students understand the religious dimension of Greek theater

Classical Drama Sites, a lot of cool links

Greek and Roman Drama: A Bibliography (Porter)

Modern Performances of Ancient Greek Theater

Didaskalia: Ancient Theater Today

Chris Vervain, Mask Theatre (from the point of view of a theater practitioner who explores the effect of masks in performance)

Angie Varakis, Research on the Ancient Mask, Didaskalia

Amy Cohen, Can You Hear Me Now? Implications of New Research in Greek Theatrical Masks (part of a special issue of Didaskalia 7.1 on masks)

MASC: Modern Actors Staging Classics

The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (University of Oxford)

Reception of the texts and images of ancient Greece in late twentieth-century drama and poetry (Open University)

Week 1

Aristophanes

John Porter's course notes on Aristophanes and Greek Old Comedy (Univ. of Saskatchewan)

Jeffrey Henderson's Life of Aristophanes (Perseus)

Marilyn Katz, "Women, Children, and Men," Chapter 5 in The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece, ed. Paul
Cartledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 100-138.

Thomas Martin's essay on Education, the Sophists, and New Intellectual Developments, Sections 11.2.1-6 (Perseus)

John Porter's course notes on Aristophanes' Clouds

Roger Dunkle's Study Guide for Aristophanes' Clouds (Brooklyn College)

Images of Aristophanes' Birds and Clouds in modern performance (MASC)

Ian Storey, "Poets, Politicians and Perverts: Personal humour in Aristophanes," Classics Ireland 5 (1998) analyzes A.'s political humor and satire

Look at the Aldine Aristophanes, the first printed edition of Aristophanes (1498)

Charlie Chaplin

Chronology of Chaplin's life (Wikipedia)

The Immigrant (1916) at IMDb

The Count (1916) at IMDb

Easy Street (1916) at IMDb

Further Chaplin links (Classic Movies)

Charlie Chaplin UK has a splendid chronology, articles (including Chaplin quotes), section on Edna Purviance, photo gallery, books on Chaplin, and more

Charlie Chaplin Archive

Mae West

Cast List for Goin' to Town (611 Ravenswood)

Goin' to Town (1935) at IMDb

Kim Stahl's Mae West Home Page features a brief bio, filmography with reviews, list of plays written by Mae West, a photo album, links, and FAQs

611 Ravenswood--the Cybersuite of the Legendary Mae West has a filmography, bibliography, Mae West quotes, and more

Week 2

Menander

portrait of Menander (Getty)
Roman herm of Menander (J. Paul Getty Museum)

Third century papyrus fragment from Oxyrynchus, Egypt preserving a portion of Menander's The Man She Hated

Mosaics illustrating Menander's comedies (Univ of Texas): a very nice collection

Painting of the poet Menander from the "House of Menander" at Pompeii (Maecenas)

Roman Mosaic of Menander from Thuburbo Majus (modern Tunisia)

Portraits of Menander (Erlangen) created after Menander's death, probably in the second century BCE

Mosaic depicting Menander's comedy Achaens (Athena Review)

Frank Capra

Frank Capra 1897-1991 (Erik Weems)

Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) at IMDb

Erik Weems' discussion of It Happened One Night

Erik Weems' Frank Capra 1897-1991 has discussions of films, a bio, links, books, and resources for students

Aristotle

Downloadable translation of Aristotle's Poetics (Internet Classics Archive)

Notes on Aristotle's Poetics (Goucher College)

Roger Dunkle's Study Guide for Aristotle's Poetics

A very comprehensive study guide to the Poetics, including
chapter-by-chapter summaries, and a glossary of terms (University of Hawaii)

Aristotle (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) gives an overview of his life, writings, and major areas of thought

Week 3

Actors preparing for performance, mosaic, Naples Museum

Plautus

John Porter's Introduction to Roman Comedy (University of Saskatchewan) includes sections on Roman society at the time of Plautus and Terence, early Roman literature, the influence of Greek New Comedy, Plautus, and Terence

Brief summaries of Plautus' and Terence's comedies (BECK)

Plautus and Roman Theater, a student project covering Plautus' life, stagecraft, stock characters, music, and more (Vassar College)

Roman Theaters, links to many Roman theater sites (Lacus Curtius)

The Marx Brothers

Marx Brothers--Groucho, Chico, and Harpo (Why a Duck?)

A Night at the Opera has pretty much everything! video clips, a slide show, cast and crew, the storyline, reviews, unseen scenes, Marx trivia from the 1935 hit

Sam Wood's A Night at the Opera (1935) at IMDb

The Marx Brothers, Four of the Three Musketeers is a Marx Brothers fiesta--bios, vaudeville, radio, TV, movies, music credits, and more

Why a Duck? is full of Marx Brothers tidbits, images, career info, audio and video, even Marx Brothers natal chart interpretations