This volume explores the relationship between the emphasis on performance in Elizabethan humanist education and the flourishing of literary brilliance around the turn of the sixteenth century.

Robin Lithgow was the first ever Theatre Adviser, and later the Director, of the Los Angeles Unified School District's Arts Education Branch. In that role she and her colleagues were the architects of the Elementary Arts Program, serving every one of over 550 elementary schools, with itinerant teachers in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts.

She is the daughter of Arthur Lithgow, perhaps the only person ever to have produced every play in Shakespeare's canon. She is the sister of the theatre and film actor, John Lithgow, who has kindly illustrated this book.