This book is a collection of 22 essays by scholars in the field of Medieval Drama, mostly relating to performance both past and present. Alford wrote one essay in the book.

John A. Alford taught at Michigan State University, the University of California–Irvine, the University of Virginia, Leeds University (U.K.), and elsewhere. His works cover Chaucer to Wordsworth, from medieval rhetoric to modern critical theory. He won awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities (twice) and the Guggenheim Foundation.

• Contents 
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. 
• The Mass as Performance Text
• Dolan, T. P.
• 2. 
• From Mappa Mundi to Theatrum Mundi: The World as Stage in Early English Drama
• Stevens, Martin
• 3. 
• Asleep Onstage
• Bevington, David
• 4. 
• Acting Mary: The Emotional Realism of the Mature Virgin in the N-Town Plays
• Johnston, Alexandra F.
• 5. 
• The Performance of Some Wakefield Master Plays on the University of Illinois Campus
• Friedman, John B.
• 6. 
• The Problem with Mrs. Noah: The Search for Performance Credibility in the Chester Noah's Flood Play
• Marx, William G.
• 7. 
• The Theaters of Everyman
• Mills, David
• 8. 
• “My Name is Worship”: Masquerading Vice in Medwall's Nature
• Alford, John A.
• 9. 
• Plays, Players, and Playwrights in Renaissance Oxford
• Elliott, Jr., John R.
• 10. 
• English Chronicle Contexts for Shakespeare's Death of Richard II
• Matheson, Lister M.
• 11. 
• Family by Death: Stage Images in Titus Andronicus and The Winter's Tale
• Robinson, Randal
• 12. 
• Bearing “A Wary Eye”: Ludic Vengeance and Doubtful Suicide in Hamlet
• McGuire, Philip C.
• Contributors
• Index