A Short History of Western Performance Space

David Wiles considers theatrical activity "happening" in churches, streets, pubs and galleries, as well as in buildings explicitly designed to be "theaters", in this historical account. Surveying performance space usage within the traditions of Western Europe, Wiles traces a diverse set of continuities, from Greece and Rome to the present, including many areas not included in standard accounts of theater history.

David Wiles is Professor of Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London. His previous publications have mainly been in the field of Elizabethan and Greek theatre, including Shakespeare's Clown: Actor and Text in the Elizabethan Playhouse (Cambridge, 1987) and Greek Theatre Performance (Cambridge, 2000). This is his seventh book.