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Western theater, From Thespis came the word "thespian”, which means…
Western theater
Ancient Athens 
Origins
It’s believed that Greek theater originated from musical rituals for Dionysus, its creator being the dramatist Thespis.
In the beginning, plays would be performed by a chorus and one actor with multiple masks for characters. No women could act.
Around 530 BC the dictator Peisistratos created a festival that included theater competitions, both for Attic and Satyr plays, sponsored by a patron (choregos).
The 5th century BC was a golden age of Athens, thanks to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Their plays were usually tetralogies: three Attics followed by a Satyr.
Types
Satyr
Satyr plays were light hearted retellings of classical stories, in which the chorus would dress as Satyrs and create chaos.
Comedy
Comedies were usually set in contemporary Athens as parodies, and would often focus on the rise of underdogs.
Aristophanes has the most surviving comedies, though due to the Peloponnesian War he had to stop mocking the Athenian leadership.
Attic
Aristotle wrote one of the first works of literary criticism, The Poetics, in which he said that plays would help us get rid of negative emotions (Catharsis).
According to him, tragedies needed three things: reversal (things go from good to bad), recognition (the character realizes something terrible happened) and suffering (the character is punished for his actions).
Plato, Aristotle’s tutor, saw plays as escapism, leading people to ignore their problems. He wanted actors to be banned.
Roman theather
History
Before being conquered by Rome, Greek theater had become more conservative and focused on the mundane, and the Romans followed such trend.
In Rome, theater didn’t have the same prestige and “educational” purpose as in Greece, and would often be performed by slaves.
After the rise of Christianity, things remained pretty much the same for actors, though theater declined in the Western Empire until a resurgence in the 10th century.
Often Roman plays would be remakes of classic Greek plays (Fabula palliata), such as Virgil’s Aeneid, as original Roman plays (Praetexta) were not very popular.
Playwrights
Seneca wrote tragedies based on Greek plays (Fabulae crepidatae), criticizing contemporary emperors such as Caligula and Nero.
Plautus and Terence were Rome’s most famous playwrights, producing plenty of comedies, which were popular among the public, although Terence would often write more serious material.
Medieval theather
Origins
Theater saw a resurgence in the middle ages, thanks to the Easter recreation of the
moment the 3 Marys find out about Jesus’s resurrection (Quem quaeritis?).
Initially plays were short and in Latin, but as time passed, they became more complex and adopted the local language.
By the 12th century, plays had started to portray the lives of other important Christians, rather than only Jesus.
Playwrights
The canoness Hrotsvitha (935-1002) was the first playwright of the middle ages. Being a fan of Greek-Roman plays, she made her own, more conservative, plays.
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From Thespis came the word "thespian”, which means "something related to theater".
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The Romans eventually got rid of the masks and the chorus, replacing them for elaborate costumes and music.
It is believed that Hrotsvitha wrote her play merely to be read, a genre called Closet drama.