The start

Examples of theatre has existed since pre-ancient civilisations, however it is unlike the theatre we know and love today.

theatre is believed to have originated from the Palaeolithic period (roughly 2.5 million years ago) when hunter gatherers, more commonly known as cavemen, would use story telling as a method of communication with one another in order to survive. Due to the inability to speak with one another, in order to survive cavemen would use storytelling in order to inform the tribe members of any possible dangers or of food sources. the cavemen would often use hand gestures and facial expressions to convey any emotions related to what they have seen, similar to modern day theatre where actors convey emotions with facial expressions.

to explore this form of story telling we spilt into groups and created a short, devised piece of theatre based of a stimulus we were given. we were given the stimulus of a caveman searching for signs of food during winter and as a result we had to convey the idea that we ,as cavemen, we cold and hungry. this was done through gestures and intonation when grunting to convey the emotions we were feeling.

from this we expanded the idea of early theatre and how as their ability of storytelling developed along with it developed myths and legends as early man attempted to explain things that happened which they couldn't understand.