What is Theater? -- Definition -- Not for Entertainment Alone -- Both Craft & Art -- Attributes of Theater -- Theatrical Spaces -- Basic Theater Types -- Historical Background -- Origins of Prehistory -- Earliest Civilizations -- Festival Theater -- Greek Tragedies & Comedies -- Medieval Festival Theater -- Liturgical Dramas -- Non-Liturgical Plays -- Cycle, Passion, & Miracle Plays (Pageant Plays) -- Late Medieval & Early Renaissance: Northern Europe -- Earliest Professional Dramatists: For Gain & Profit -- Hellenistic Greek & Roman Empire -- Renaissance Theater -- Opera -- Court Masques -- Commedia dell'arte (Comedy of Professional Actors) -- Elizabethan Dramatists Pre-Shakespeare -- Shakespeare's Theater -- Restoration Dramas -- Romanticism -- Early American Theaters -- American Pioneer Theater -- Melodramas -- Vaudeville -- Minstrel Shows -- Modern Opera -- Operettas -- Modern Theater -- Global Diversity -- Basic Parts of a Modern Theater Building -- Putting on a Play: A Creative Collaboration -- Backstage Superstitions -- Types of Modern Theatrical Companies -- Fully Professional -- Regional & Repertory -- Community or Civic -- Educational -- Other -- Popular Plays.