The Stage Directions Guide to Shakespeare offers sane, sensible advice on reasons to do (or not to do) Shakespeare, assessing your theatre group abilities, selecting a play, casting, making costume and set decisions, the special demands of directing and playing Shakespeare and publicity.

The subject of stage directions in 'Hamlet', those brief semiotic codes that are embellished by historical, theatrical, and cultural considerations, produces a rigorous examination in the fifteen essays contained in this collection. This volume encompasses essays that are guardedly inductive in their critical approaches, as well as those that critique modern productions that attempt to achieve Shakespearean effect through a modern aesthetic. The volume also includes essays that enunciate the production of stage business as a cultural interplay between productions and social agencies outside the theater.

Drawing from the columns and archives of Stage Directions magazine and adding new material and introductions that put the information into perspective, the editors focus on five main areas of responsibility in musical theater.

The Stage Directions Guide to Working Back Stage provides an overview of what goes on behind the scenes as well as specific guidance for each essential area of back-stage operation.

The Shakespearean Stage Space explores the original staging of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries in Renaissance playhouses.