Thespus

Thespis in Wikipedia

Thespis of Icaria (present-day Dionysos, Greece) (6th century BC), according to certain Ancient Greek sources and especially Aristotle, was the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in a play (instead of speaking as him or herself). In other sources, he is said to have introduced the first principal actor in addition ...

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Thespis in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

（Θέσπις). The father of Greek Tragedy. He was a contemporary of Pisistratus, and a native of Icarus, one of the demes in Attica, where the worship of Dionysus had long prevailed. The alteration made by Thespis , which gave to the old Tragedy a new and dramatic character, was very simple but very important. Before his time the leader of the Chorus h...

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