What does it mean for early modern theatre to be 'live'? How have audiences over time experienced a sense of 'liveness'? This collection extends discussions of liveness to works from the 16th and 17th centuries, both in their initial incarnations and contemporary adaptations. Drawing on theatre and performance studies, as well as media theory, this volume uses the concept of liveness to consider how early modern theatre - including non-Western and non-traditional performance - employs embodiment, materiality, temporality and perception to impress on its audience a sensation of presence. The volume's contributors adopt varying approaches and cover a range of topics from material and textual studies, to early modern rehearsal methods, to digital and VR theatre, to the legacy of Shakespearean performance in global theatrical repertoires. This collection uses both early modern and contemporary performance practices to challenge our understanding of live performance. Productions and adaptions discussed include the Royal Shakespeare Company's Dream (2021), CREW's Hands on Hamlet (2017), Kit Monkman's Macbeth (2018), Arslanköy Theatre Company's Kraliçe Lear (2019), and a season of productions by the Original Practice Shakespeare Festival. Early Modern Liveness looks beyond theatrical events as primary sites of interpretive authority and examines the intimate and ephemeral experience of encountering early modern theatre in its diverse manifestations.

List of FiguresNotes on ContributorsAcknowledgementsIntroductionDanielle Rosvally (University at Buffalo, USA) and Donovan Sherman (Seton Hall University, USA) Part One: Proximity1. Liveness in Virtual Early Modern TheatreRebecca Bushnell (University of Pennsylvania, USA)2. Impressions of Liveness in Shakespeare, at a DistanceStephanie Shirilan (Syracuse University, USA)3. Medium Specificity, Medium Convergence, and Aliveness in the Chromakey (2018) and Big Telly Zoom (2020) MacbethsThomas Cartelli (Muhlenberg College, USA)Part Two: Performance4. Liveness in VR and AR Shakespeare AdaptationsAneta Mancewicz (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)5. Alive in the (Early) Modern RepertoryElizabeth E. Tavares (University of Alabama, USA)6. Contemporary Turkish Shakespeares: New Breath to Old LivesMurat Ögütcü (independent scholar, Turkey)7. Death Draws Down our Curtain: Liveness Beyond Life in Early Modern Persianate IslamKenneth Molloy (Brown University, USA)8. Signs of Liveness: The Blazing Star in Renaissance DramaGina M. Di Salvo (University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA)9. The Apparitional Audience: Prophesizing Live Collectives in Modern India and Early Modern EnglandJonathan Gil Harris (Ashoka University, India)Index