Aimed at students of theater and of the drama as literature, this study highlights the form and voice of stage directions as an important aspect of dramatic discourse generally, and Elizabethan drama specifically. It traces the development of Elizabethan directions from their medieval forebears and contrasts the directions associated with the professional theaters with the neoclassical conventions of other venues. Author Linda McJannet reveals similarities that underlie observed differences in the directions of manuscripts and printed texts, and she analyzes the contribution of Elizabethan directions to the survival of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, both in the theater and on the page.