This collection asks pressing questions about how and why we study performances of Renaissance drama, challenging prevailing views and suggesting new methodologies for the field. How does an emphasis on Shakespeare limit us? What can we learn from non-traditional theatre? Why should we rethink the value of studying what happens onstage?

This collection asks pressing questions about how and why we study performances of Renaissance drama, challenging prevailing views and suggesting new methodologies for the field

Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: S.Werner PART I: WORKING WITH THE EPHEMERAL One Piece at a Time; R.Shaughnessy Replaying Early Modern Performances; W.N.West Acts of Seizure: A Theatrical Poetics of Metonymy and Metaphor; C.Cobb PART II: RECONNECTING LITERARY CRITICISM AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS Page and Stage Again: Rethinking Renaissance Character Phenomenologically; A.J.Hartley The Spirit of '76: Original Practices and Revolutionary Nostalgia; P.Menzer Spreading the Shakespeare Gospel: A rhetorical history of the academic theater review; J.Lopez PART III: RESITUATING SHAKESPEARE Performance Criticism Without Performance; G.Love Performing Relevance/Relevant Performances: Shakespeare, Jonson, Hitchcock; E.Smith Shakespeare and Our Contemporaries; B.Escolme 'Ay, there's the rub': Race and Performance Studies; A.Thompson Performing the 'Live': Cinema, Simulation, and the Death of the Real in Alex Cox's Revengers' Tragedy ; C.Lehmann Index