This in-depth introduction to theatre arts concentrates on all major aspects of theatre, including acting, directing, playwriting and design. An entertaining writing style by authors who are actively involved in theatre and current examples and testimonials by a variety of well-known artists capture students' imaginations and help bring theatre into their frame of reference.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Using the concept of theatricality to study Water Margin and Journey to the West, this study illustrates how writing and reading in early modern China became fused with a theatrical imagination in response to destabilizing social and political forces.

The Dramatic Imagination is one of the few enduring works written about set design. Robert Edmond Jones's innovations in set design and lighting brought new ideas to the stage, but it is greater understanding of design - its role at the heart of theater - that has continued to inspire theater students. The volume includes "A New Kind of Drama," "To a Young Stage Designer" and six other of Jones's "reflections."

Drawing on a wealth of unpublished archival material, this study offers a comprehensive assessment of the importance of theatrical performance in Vladimir Nabokov's thinking and writing. Siggy Frank provides fresh insights into Nabokov's wider aesthetics and arrives at new readings of his narrative fiction. As well as emphasising the importance of theatrical performance to our understanding of Nabokov's texts, she demonstrates that the theme of theatricality runs through the central concerns of Nabokov's art and life: the nature of fiction, the relationship between the author and his fictional world, textual origin and derivation, authorial control and textual property, literary appropriations and adaptations, and finally the transformation of the writer himself from the Russian émigré writer Sirin to the American novelist Nabokov.

A critical and comprehensive exploration of the influential Broadway musical analyzes West Side Story against a backdrop of its cultural period while considering its reflection of both classical Shakespeare conflicts and modern youth issues. Original.