Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction: The Grim and the Unusual in the History of Western Theater -- Act I: The Strange Lives and Odd Fates of Playwrights, Actors, Theater Companies, and More -- 1. The Ancient World -- Ancient Mesopotamian dramatic rituals -- Ancient Egyptian dramatic rituals -- The Hittites and the Anatolian Greeks -- 2. Ancient Greece and Rome -- Comedy and tragedy -- Aeschylus (525/524-ca. 456/455 BCE) -- Sophocles (ca. 497/96-406/05 BCE) -- Euripides (ca. 480-ca. 406 BC) -- Philemon (ca. 362 BCE-ca. 262 BCE) -- Seneca the Younger (ca. 4 BCE-65 CE) -- Atellan farces and Roman mimes (ca. 391 BCE-third century CE and later) -- 3. The Middle Ages and Renaissance -- Jacopone da Todi (ca. 1230-1306) -- The fabliaux: scandalous minidramas (ca. 1200-ca. 1340) -- Elaborate and ridiculous medieval stage sets (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) -- Arnoul Gréban (ca. 1420-1473/86) and Simon Gréban (mid-fifteenth century) -- Onstage agony: accidents and otherwise (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) -- Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) -- Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) -- 4. The Tudor and Stuart Ages: A Golden Age of English Theater -- Tudor and Jacobean playhouses: dens of iniquity -- Traveling players: liars, vagabonds, and ne'er-do-wells -- Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) -- Robert Greene (1558-1592) -- Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) -- Ben Jonson (1572-1637) -- Moll Cutpurse (ca. 1584-1659) -- The fiery end of the Globe Theatre (June 29, 1613) -- Richard Burbage's very brief epitaph (1567-1619) -- 5. The Seventeenth Century -- Lope de Vega (1562-1635) -- William Davenant (1606-1668) -- Thomas Killigrew (1612-1683) -- Molière (1622-1673) -- The spectacle of English female actors during the Restoration (1660 onward) -- Charles Rivière Dufresny (1648-1724) -- Nathaniel Lee (ca. 1645/53-1692) -- Jeremy Collier (1650-1726).

Anne Bracegirdle (ca. 1671-1748) -- 6. The Eighteenth Century -- Joseph Addison (1672-1719) -- Charles Macklin (1690/99-1797) -- Voltaire (1694-1778) -- Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) -- Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799) -- The obnoxious Licensing Act of 1737 -- Philippe Fabre d'Églantine (1750-1794) -- 7. The Nineteenth Century -- August von Kotzebue (1761-1819) -- Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) -- Alexander Griboyedov (1795-1829) -- Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) -- The Old Price riots (1809) -- Vampires onstage: a nineteenth-century obsession -- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) -- Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) -- 8. The Modern Age -- Pedro Muñoz Seca (1879-1936) -- John Barrymore (1882-1942) -- Michel de Ghelderode (1898-1962) -- The Derby disaster at the London Coliseum (1905) -- Ödön von Horváth (1901-1938) -- Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) -- Albert Camus (1913-1960) -- Intermission -- Act II: A Dark and Weird Theatrical Miscellany -- 1. The Shakespeare You May Not Know -- Was Shakespeare a secret Catholic? -- The utterly awful Titus Andronicus -- The bloodiest moments in Shakespeare's plays -- The authorship controversy-did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? -- Shakespeare's ear and the golden earring -- Where is Shakespeare's head? -- William Henry Ireland: the great Shakespeare forger -- Yorick's skull, like, for real -- 2. The Commedia dell'Arte -- The cast of characters: -- That old devil, Arlecchino (Harlequin) -- The deceitful and cruel Brighella -- The zany zanni -- The foolish and miserly Pantalone -- The quack Doctor -- The bombastic Capitano (Captain) -- The innocent Innamorati (the Lovers) -- The coarse and volatile Pulcinella -- The youthful servant Pedrolino -- The scenarios -- The slapstick and physical comedy -- Punch and Judy-violent and comical Commedia puppet shows -- 3. The Bloody Theater.

Fake carnage for the stage: animal-blood bladders, red rags, and many body parts -- The horrors of the Grand Guignol in Paris and London -- Actors who gave their all for their final performances -- 4. An Abundance of Superstitions, Curses, and Bad Luck -- Never whistle backstage -- Never wish anyone "good luck" -- The mysterious ghost light -- Peacock feathers are forbidden -- Unlucky colors -- Deadly flowers -- The curse of "the Scottish Play" -- The curse of Ophelia? -- And the list goes on and on . . . -- 5. Haunted Theaters -- Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London -- The Adelphi Theatre, the Strand, London -- St. James Theatre, Wellington, New Zealand -- The Palace Theatre, New York -- New Amsterdam Theatre, New York -- The Duke of York Theatre, London -- 6. An Encore of Theatrical Oddities -- David Garrick and the wigs both scary and silly -- Joseph Grimaldi's awful discovery -- Sol Smith and the theater of bones -- Henry Miller and the Great Divide with his audience -- Hedda Gabbler's overly noisy suicide -- The madness of the King in Yellow -- The game show guest who saw it all -- Exit Stage Left -- Suggestions for Further Reading -- Acknowledgments -- About the Author -- Photos.