Editing Acting (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of theatre}}

One of the first known actors was an [[Classical Greece|ancient Greek]] called [[Thespis]] of [[Icaria]] in [[Classical Athens|Athens]]. Writing two centuries after the event, [[Aristotle]] in his ''[[Poetics (Aristotle)|Poetics]]'' ({{circa|335 BCE}}) suggests that Thespis stepped out of the [[dithyramb]]ic [[Greek chorus|chorus]] and addressed it as a separate [[Character (arts)|character]]. Before Thespis, the chorus [[Narration|narrated]] (for example, "Dionysus did this, Dionysus said"). When Thespis stepped out from the chorus, he spoke as if he were the character (for example, "I am Dionysus, I did this"). To distinguish between these different [[Mode (literature)|modes]] of storytelling—enactment and narration—Aristotle uses the terms "[[mimesis]]" (via enactment) and "[[diegesis]]" (via narration).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Halliwell |first=Stephen |date=2013-09-12 |title=Diegesis – Mimesis |url=https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/node/36.html |access-date=2024-09-11 |website=The living handbook of narratology |publisher=[[University of Hamburg]]}}</ref> From the Greek actor [[Thespis]]' name derives the word "thespian".