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◙ Dates can be tricky.  Throughout my website I use BCE and CE, which stand for Before Common Era and Common Era.  Some sources may use BC (Before Christ) for dates before the year 1 and AD (Anno Domini = the year of our lord) for dates in the year 1 and after.  Using the "common era" abbreviations is most popular in modern research materials.  I've made a diagram to show how to determine what years are included when talking about a certain century:              

◙ Names are equally tricky.  Greek play, playwright, and character names usually appear in three different ways: Latin form, Greek form, and English form.  Latin was the accepted language of scholarship for many years, but some Greek names were still used.  Today English titles are becoming increasingly popular.  For example, we refer to Sophocles' play as Oedipus Rex, the Latin title, however we refer to Euripides' play as The Children of Heracles, the English title.  If you see a title that you don't recognize just run it through a search engine and see if other translations show up, you might recognize the English translation and not the Latin.

◙ Translation is very important.  If your director or professor suggests that you read a play, ask them if they have a specific translation which they recommend.

 

◙ It is important to remember that what we know of ancient Greek theatre is from historians reconstructing based on scripts, archaeology, and some artwork such as vase paintings.  We are able to gather details from the script about performance without stage directions.  The writers did not include directions for the actors, but they did intend the play to be performed at one specific theatre for only one performance.  The plays were meant to be performed at a ceremony or festival and so we know more about the context in which each play was written.

 

◙ The writers who we study today are based on what plays exist to read.  There were more playwrights who wrote plays which were not preserved.  It would be nice to think that the ones that were preserved were done so because they were the best plays written from the time period, but we don't actually know why some plays survived and some didn't.  The playwrights we do study wrote more plays also, and we know this because we have records of them being performed, or of a critic referring to a performance.  The term "extant" means the plays that we have in full today.  A writer may have written hundreds of plays, and we might only have seven extant. 

 

◙ When reading different books about Greek theatre it is important to read the author's introduction.  There is usually information about what kind of sources they used or what they are trying to accomplish with their research.  Multiple authors will have multiple points of view on things you thought were "facts".  Because the research on many aspects of Greek theatre is inconclusive, you may come across differing opinions.  It is important to keep in mind that the authors of the books are using different resources and they bring their own biases to their writing.