How has light influenced the staging of theatre throughout history? What does light contribute to performance? How does it make meaning? This collection explores the creative potential of light in the theatre. Through a wide range of extracts from historical accounts, new research and rare documents, some presented for the first time in English, Scott Palmer provides new ways of thinking about lighting as a creative performance practice. Focusing on elements such as: the emergence of lighting design in the theatre, equipment and techniques, the dramaturgy of light, its impact on actor, audience and playhouse and the semiotics and phenomenology of light in performance. The book reveals why light has such a profound effect on the audience's experience of a theatrical event.