E. K. Chambers's seminal four-volume account of the private, public, and court stages, together with other forms of drama and spectacle surviving from earlier times, from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth until the death of Shakespeare. Haled as a comprehensive compendium of 'practically all the discoverable evidence upon the various parts of the subject, collected, weighed, sorted, classified and built up with immense care into a logical and beautiful structure' (New Statesman), the work is still much consulted by today's scholars and historians.

Formerly published as "English Renaissance Theatre History: A Reference Guide" by G. K. Hall in 1982, this annotated bibliography of scholarship in the field of Elizabethan theatre history has been out of print for almost 30 years. Most academic libraries have a copy in their reference departments, and this classic is now available for the personal libraries of students and scholars in the field. It has never been easier to review the academic literature in such areas as reconstructions of Shakespeare's Globe Playhouse, and other public and private playhouses of Shakespeare's London; the court masques; Inigo Jones; Richard Burbage and other actors of the time; the Lord Mayor's Shows; Puritan opposition to the stage; and other such topics. The terminal date of 1979 reflects the date of original production, but with this tool it is a simple matter for the scholar to update his or her review of the literature. The comprehensive Index is invaluable, and Stevens also provides a preface and introduction.

American Historical Review is the oldest scholarly journal of history in the United States and the largest in the world. Published by the American Historical Association, it covers all areas of historical research.

This book examines the many and varied uses of apocalyptic and anti-Catholic language in seventeenth-century English drama. Adrian Streete argues that this rhetoric is not simply an expression of religious bigotry, nor is it only deployed at moments of political crisis. Rather, it is an adaptable and flexible language with national and international implications. It offers a measure of cohesion and order in a volatile century. By rethinking the relationship between theatre, theology and polemic, Streete shows how playwrights exploited these connections for a diverse range of political ends. Chapters focus on playwrights like Marston, Middleton, Massinger, Shirley, Dryden and Lee, and on a range of topics including imperialism, reason of state, commerce, prostitution, resistance, prophecy, church reform and liberty. Drawing on important recent work in religious and political history, this is a major re-interpretation of how and why religious ideas are debated in the early modern theatre.

"This updated edition should be welcomed by anyone interested in Shakespeare. Particularly useful are its pithy introductions and bibliographies on various critical approaches". -- David Bevington, editor of Complete Works of Shakespeare. "A handy, compact map to the changing and contested field of Shakespeare studies". -- Bruce R. Smith, author of Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Reviews of the First Edition `...valuable and enjoyable reading for all studying Shakespeare's plays.' Following in the patternestablished by John Russell Brown for the excellent series (Theatre and Production Studies), he provides first an account of Shakespeare's company, then a study of three individual plays Twelfth Night, Hamlet and Macbeth as performed by the company. Peter Thomson writes in a crisp, sharp, enlivening style.' TLS '`...the best analysis yet of Elizabethan acting practices, excavated form the texts themselves rather than reconstructed on basis of one monolithic theory, and an essay on Hamlet that is a model of Critical intelligence and theatrical invention.' Yearbook of English Studies `Synthesizes the important facts and summarizes projects with a vigorous prose style, and expertly applies his experience in both practical drama and academic teaching to his discussion.' Review of English Studies

How did Elizabethan and Jacobean acting companies create their visual and aural effects? What materials were available to them and how did they influence staging and writing? What impact did the sensations of theatre have on early modern audiences? How did the construction of the playhouses contribute to technological innovations in the theatre? What effect might these innovations have had on the writing of plays? Shakespeare's Theatres and The Effects of Performance is a landmark collection of essays by leading international scholars addressing these and other questions to create a unique and comprehensive overview of the practicalities and realities of the theatre in the early modern period.

In close to fifty sessions, the congress theme - "Shakespeare and the Twentieth Century" - allowed for critical approaches from many directions: through twentieth-century theater history on almost every continent; through a range of media representations from film to databases; through the changing theoretical models of the period that extend to the latest politically inflected readings; and through appropriations of the play-texts by modern art forms such as recent fiction.