Audience: its role and imagination -- Background and expectations of the audience -- Critic and the audience -- Acting: offstage and in the past -- Stage acting today -- Director and the producer -- Subject, purpose, and point of view -- Tragedy and other serious drama -- Comedy and tragicomedy -- Musical theater -- Theater of diversity -- Conventions of dramatic structure -- Dramatic structure: climate, episodic, and other forms -- Dramatic characters -- Stage spaces -- Scenery -- Stage costumes -- Lighting and sound