For the new edition of this reference work, the text has been revised both to widen its coverage of the theatre and to bring existing entries up to date. Based on the fourth edition of its parent volume, "The Oxford Companion to the Theatre", but also taking in developments since that volume appeared, it seeks to serve as a handbook for the theatre-goer or drama student. The range of the book is international and it contains information on all aspects of the theatre. There are entries on dramatists, from Plautus and Ibsen to Arthur Miller and Christopher Hampton; actors and actresses, from Sarah Bernhardt to Laurence Olivier and Anthony Hopkins; directors, such as Peter Brook, Peter Hall and Mike Nichols; theatres, from Shakespeare's Globe to the Palais-Royal in Paris and the Shubert in New York; and critics, from Kenneth Tynan to Clive Barnes. In addition to theatre styles, whether mime, melodrama, or vaudeville, and theatre festivals, from Oberammergau to the Edinburgh fringe, the book provides details about theatre companies, designers and producers. The more technical aspects of theatre are also dealt with, for example lighting, sound, method acting, and the different parts of a stage, and a system of cross-references guides the reader to other entries containing related information.