As time progressed the first orchestra or ‘dancing space’ became more like what we would recognise today as a regular theatre. To aid sight lines and provide seating for spectators, wooden benches (or bleachers) were erected around it in the form of a theatron or ‘seeing place’.
 
The 5th century orchestra was first reconstructed by the German architectural-historian Dörpfeld. He postulated that a circle with a diameter of about 27 metres (and therefore considerably larger than that of the later theatres) was located slightly to the southwest of the subsequent orchestras (see an illustration of this reconstruction set against a plan of the later theatres).
 
According to the later architectural surveys that were undertaken by Dinsmoor, however, the original orchestra should only be estimated at 26 metres in diameter. Fiechter (who is the scholar responsible for much of the accepted wisdom on the earliest site) was of the opinion that the wall used in Dörpfeld’s reconstruction was simply a retaining wall for the road leading up to the orchestra terrace, and that the orchestra could not therefore have been much larger than the later ‘dancing places’. Fiechter also ‘normalised’ the position of the first orchestra somewhat, moving it northwest and locating it in more or less the same place as the theatre’s late ones.
 
The rudimentary theatre of the 5th century BC is of most interest to theatre historians because it was the one that saw the original performances of the three great tragic dramatists Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. Their plays were put on as part of two annual Athenian festivals (the festival of Dionysus and the Lenaia) at which both city officials and dignitaries attended, as well as foreign ambassadors. At these events, dramatists competed against each other to win recognition and status as the victorious playwright, a highly prized honour in Athenian society.
 
During the 5th century BC, however, there was an extensive period of re-building in Athens, while the city was largely under the control of Pericles.  The theatre of Dionysus was greatly enlarged and improved by the addition of raked wooden benches positioned around the orchestra and supported by earthen embankments. A limited amount of stone seating may also have been undertaken in this period.
 
Although the Periclean stage buildings were still made of wood, evidence from the plays of the period suggests that they were much more complicated than the earlier temporary structures constructed out of wood and canvas. The new buildings were semi-permanent and normally had two stories. They represented palaces, houses or temples and gods could appear above their roofs. The central feature of the Periclean stage building clearly consisted of a large structure that was erected to the north of (and lined up back to back with) the new long hall or stoa that was probably the last of the buildings to be constructed according to the ‘Periclean Plan’.