f over17,000. Regardless, it was believed to have excellent acoustics. Without the excellentacoustics, audience members in the furthest back rows would likely have very little ideawhat was happening on stage. Very few visual aspects of the performance could be madeout from such great distances. For this reason, set designers would avoid intricate detailon most everything they constructed. Playwrights would call for designs that wererelatively basic so they could be clearly discernible from the furthest seats. For the samereason, costume designers were forced to create costumes on a large scale. Very largemasks were worn by many of the actors. The masks emphasized the dominant traits of thecharacters they were impersonating so they too could be seen from the same far awayseats. During the reign of Alexander the Great and throughout the fourth century B.C., anew type of theater referred to as the Hellenistic Theater was built. Like the theaters builtin the prior century, Hellenistic theaters contained the orchestra, parados, and the skene.However, architecturally speaking, that is the extent of the similarities between thetheaters of the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. As previously mentioned, theatersunderwent major renovations that included the installation of permanent stone seating.This feature first appeared in the Hellenistic Theaters of the fourth century B.C.,which were predominately built out of stone and marble. Another new aspect of theHellenistic Theaters was the columns used next to the skene. The columns ranged inheight from 8-13 feet. These columns were typically enclosed by the paraskenia. Therewere painted boards located behind the columns called pinakes. Also, the auditorium wasslightly larger than a semi-circle, and the skene was now divided into rooms (Nicoll 18).The skene also underwent some major alterations. There were three doors on the backwall through which actors could enter and exit the orchestra. The interior ...
