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.

Farah Karim-Cooper is Head of Research at Shakespeare's Globe, London, UK and the author of several critical studies focussing on performance.

Tiffany Stern is Beaverbrook and Bouverie Fellow and Tutor in English, University College, Oxford, UK. She is a General Editor of the New Mermaids series and the author of several critical studies.

Contributors include: Andrew Gurr, Gwilym Jones (Queen Mary, University of London), Nathalie Rivere de Carles (University of Toulouse), Lucy Munro (University of Keele), Andrea Stevens (University of Illinois), Bridget Escolme (Queen Mary, University of London), Paul Menzer (Mary Baldwin College), Bruce Smith (University of Southern California), Holly Dugan (George Washington University), Evelyn Tribble (University of Otago)