This title offers a comprehensive introduction to Shakespeare's ??i??A Midsummer Night's Dream??i?? - introducing its critical history, performance history, the current critical landscape and new directions in research on the play. ??i??A Midsummer Night's Dream??i?? is one of Shakespeare's most widely studied comedies. This guide offers students an introduction to its critical and performance history, including notable stage productions, TV, and film versions as well as opera and ballet. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further individual research. ??i??Continuum Renaissance Drama??i?? offers practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performative contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Each guide introduces the text's critical and performance history but also provides students with an invaluable insight into the landscape of current scholarly research through a keynote essay on the state of the art and newly commissioned essays of fresh research from different critical perspectives.