This groundbreaking text examines how artists on stage consciously perform age and aging. From Shakespeare to Beckett, dialogue and stage directions reveal varying understandings of age. Staging Age explores how performers respond to audience expectations, offering conscious--and unconscious--portrayals of the spectrum of age to their audiences. This essay collection is the first to address issues of age and performance in a variety of media, including theatre, film, and dance. --Book Jacket.