The Final Curtain: The Art of Dying on Stage

It is a book about dying, or, more accurately, about the representation of dying in the theatre. Its chief concern is how actors undertook to translate words and concepts into forms legible and significant to an audience. It deals with the ways in which playwrights wrote about death and attitudes towards death in their cultures. Nevertheless, the emphasis is on the practice of acting.

Laurence Senelick is Fletcher Professor Emeritus of Drama and Oratory at Tufts University and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His many books include The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre; The American Stage (Library of America); and Jacques Offenbach and the Making of Modern Culture.