Glossary of Theatre Terms

Chorus

In ancient Greek drama, the chorus was a group of masked actors who collectively spoke and sung to comment on the action of the play. The number in a tragic chorus was between twelve and fifteen, while a comedy had up to twenty-four actors. In Elizabethan times, the chorus was frequently a single person who spoke the prologue and epilogue to the audience. Today, the chorus is usually associated with musical theatre or pantomime where a number of male and female singers and dancers perform numbers interspersed between the main action or text.