Professor Eric Csapo

This appointment provides Professor Eric Csapo with the time, access to primary and secondary sources and collaborative intellectual environment needed to complete two foundational volumes on the institutional history of the ancient theatre. The volumes are a comprehensive re-collection and re-assessment of all evidence for the structure, finance, organisation, growth and social impact of theatre in the first centuries of its existence. This is the only major overhaul of the evidence in 50 years, and adds considerably to the corpus of known knowledge while investigating social and economic issues never before addressed. A separate but related work will provide a more accessible, continuous, narrative history of the growth and transformation of theatre from its origins until Hellenistic times.