Foreword by Wilt L. Idema, Harvard University

Introduction by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson, Shih-pe Wang

1) Setting the Scene: Playwrights and Localities
- Yongming Xu, 'The Backdrop of Regional Theatre to Tang Xianzu's Drama'
- Paul Edmondson, 'Stratford-upon-Avon: 1616'

2) Classics, Tastes, and Popularity
- Wei Hua, 'The “Popular Turn”in the Elite Theatre of the Ming after Tang Xianzu: Love, Dream, and Deaths in The Tale of the West Loft'
- Nick Walton, 'Blockbusters and Popular Stories'

3) Making History
- Ayling Wang, 'Shishiju as Public Forum: The Crying Phoenix and the Dramatization of Current Political Affairs in Late Ming China'
- Helen Cooper, 'Dramatizing the Tudors'

4) The State and the Theatre
- Tian Yuan Tan, 'Sixty Plays from the Ming Palace, 1615-1618'
- Janet Clare, 'Licensing the King's Men: From Court Revels to Public Performance'

5) The Transmission of Dramatic Texts and Printing
- Stephen H. West, 'Tired, Sick, and Looking for Money: Zang Maoxun in 1616'
- Jason Scott-Warren, 'Status Anxiety: Arguing about Plays and Print in Early Modern London'

6) Dramatic Authorship and Collaboration
- Patricia Sieber, 'Is There a Playwright in This Text? The 1610s and the Consolidation of Dramatic Authorship in Late Ming Print Culture'
- Peter Kirwan, '“May I subscribe a name?”: Terms of Collaboration in 1616'

7) Audiences, Critics, and Reception
- Shih-pe Wang, 'Revising Peony Pavilion: Audience Reception in Presenting Tang Xianzu's Text'
- Anjna Chouhan, '“No epilogue, I pray you”: Audience Reception in Shakespearian Theatre'

8) Music and Performance
- Mei Sun, 'Seeking the Relics of Music and Performance: An Investigation of Chinese Theatrical Scenes Published in the Early Seventeenth Century (1606–1616)'
- David Lindley, 'Music in the English theatre of 1616'

9) Theatre in Theory and Practice
- Regina Llamas, 'Xu Wei's A Record of Southern Drama: The Idea of a Theatre at the Turn of Seventeenth-Century China'
- Will Tosh, 'Taking Cover: 1616 and the Move Indoors'

10) Theatre across Genres and Cultures
- Xiaoqiao Ling, 'Elite Drama Readership Staged in Vernacular Fiction: The Western Wing and The Retrieved History of Hailing'
- Kate McLuskie, '“There be salmons in both”: Models of Connection for Seventeenth-Century English and Chinese Drama'

Afterword by Stanley Wells, CBE, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Notes on Contributors

List of Cited Works