Next month I begin rehearsals for the tragedy “The Bacchae”. I was hoping to be cast as The Herdsman or The Messenger (something within the scope of a newbie actor like myself, yet meaty enough to feel important 
) I didn’t get those parts, and wound up cast as a ‘Guard’. I was a bit forlorn, but I am still part of the cast, and I did ultimately get cast in a play, having to compete with 45-odd other people who wanted to in the cast. So I am still pretty excited even though it is an itty bitty part. Now, so far, I have very little in terms of details from the Director; I think she is kind of coming up with stuff as she goes along. During a cast meeting last December, all she told us was, “Don’t get your hair cut” I guess so that the costume/makeup people have more hair to work with on everybody when they style it. 
The Director did say she was going for realism; she wanted us to look like real Thebans, and this got me wondering. What do Thebans look like? If you saw an Ancient Theban, Spartan, Athenian, and Macedonian standing next to each other, how could you tell them apart? I know these city-states differed socially, but did those differences extend to style of dress?
Also, the Director did something else I thought was pretty considerate. Everybody who played someone that didn’t have a name was encouraged to come up with their own name. Thus, it isn’t “The Messenger”, but “Genericgreeknameicles the Messenger” which is a nice way to help us lesser parts still feel like a significant part of the production. Lately I have been trying to think of a name- I wanted to think up a clever Theban name, perhaps as an obscure reference to some other story. For example, I was thinking of looking to see if any Thebans were mentioned in the Illiad; with so many damn ships, you’d figure there’s gotta be some Theban soldiers in there somewhere. Then if someone asks me what part I played in the play, instead of,
“I played Guard #2”
I could puff myself up and exclaim,
“I played obscurethebandudeicus, a veteran of the Trojan War, personal guard of Pentheus who was responsible for assisting in the interrogation of a man who claimed to be Dionysus” 
So far one Theban name I found was Epaminondas, but he seemed to be a little bit too famous…I dunno, maybe I could claim I am playing Epaminondas who moonlighted as one of Pentheus’ cronies before he went and made himself a war hero.