The Great European Stage Directors Set 2 offers an authoritative account of the work, lineage and legacy of the major European theatre directors from the second half of the twentieth century. Across the four volumes and the companion series Set 1: Pre-1950, it provides a uniquely rich study of the genealogy and development of a practice through focus on individual directors and the wider context and artform in which they worked. For professional practitioners and those developing their skills, as well as those engaged in the analysis of theatre practices, forms and history, it will prove an essential resource.

Each volume provides substantial treatment of three major directors, with each director considered by two specialists, combining analysis of the director's practical craft with accounts of the historical, cultural and theoretical context of their practice. Links between the featured directors and other artists and directors from the period are traced to round out the picture of influences and artistic development.

Volume 5: Grotowski, Brook, Barba (edited by Paul Allain, University of Kent, UK): explorations in space, audience and place in the theatre across cultures; theatre and beyond; and theatre-making as research

Volume 6: Littlewood, Strehler, Planchon (edited by Clare Finburgh, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, and Peter Boenisch, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK): refunctioning or 'translating' written text, and the development of new modes of 'post-Brechtian' staging

Volume 7: Barrault, Mnouchkine, Stein (edited by Felicia Hardison Londré, University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA): methods shaped by work with a company; artistry underpinned by responsibility for an ensemble

Volume 8: Bausch, Castellucci, Fabre (edited by Luk Van den Dries and Timmy De Laet, University of Antwerp, Belgium): three major contemporary artists with different approaches to directorial 'authorship'

Simon Shepherd is Professor of Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London, UK. He conceived and edits Palgrave's Readings in Theatre Practice series, for which his volume Direction appeared in 2012. Among his other titles are The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Theatre, Drama/Theatre/Performance (with Mick Wallis), and Studying Plays (with Mick Wallis, Bloomsbury, 2010).

Paul Allain is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Kent, UK. He has worked as Movement Director for the RSC and National Theatre and has published extensively on Polish theatre, Chekhov and actor training. He is currently director of the British Grotowski Project and leading a research collaboration with the Moscow Art Theatre School.

Peter M. Boenisch is Professor of Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama,University of London, UK.

Clare Finburgh is Reader in the department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. She is the author of Watching War on the Twenty-First Century Stage (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017).

Felicia Hardison Londré, Curators' Professor of Theatre at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA, is Dean of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre (2012-2014). Her many books include The Enchanted Years of the Stage: Kansas City at the Crossroads of American Theatre, 1870-1930 (2007), awarded the George Freedley Memorial Award by the Theatre Library Association. For twenty-three years she was dramaturg for Missouri Repertory Theatre.

Luk Van den Dries is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. His research deals with contemporary theatre, with a focus on postdramatic theatre . He has written extensively on Jan Fabre and on the representation of the body in contemporary theatre, and co-edited three books on this topic.

Timmy De Laet is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and the Research Centre for Visual Poetics.