William Storm delivers a wide-ranging investigation of character in drama from ancient beginnings to the present day.

This comprehensive work is truly the first textbook in the field of dramaturgy. Most of the material-much of it by leaders in all areas of the theater-was commissioned for this collection, rather than being reprinted. Its currency and importance cannot be overestimated. A review of the history of dramaturgy as a profession, together with its European antecedents, gives students a sense of historical context. Selections from respected and recognized names in theater provoke student interest and communicate the benefits of those experts' experiences.

This study analyzes Musil's contribution to the praxis and poetics of drama by placing his dramatic efforts in the context of what Peter Szondi has described as the "crisis of modern drama". Musil's plays address such issues as the problem of dramatic mimesis and the question of whether there can be a modern form of tragic drama appropriate to the experience of modernity. Close readings of his texts explore how any drama prefigures the interaction between text/reader and performance/audience by means of self-referential devices. Such an investigation not only reveals a special facet of Musil's oeuvre, but also offers a contribution towards a theory of reading drama, a reading of the printed play as a prefiguration of an enacted event.