This volume gathers 16 papers originally written for the occasion of the 49th Colston Symposium, held in Bristol in 1997, and substantially revised for this publication. They reflect on some of the key developments in the discipline of Theatre Studies over the past fifty years and combine this with a discussion of new trends and approaches, especially in the fields of Performance Studies, reception analysis, interculturalism, sociocultural analysis, theatre anthropology, dance and movement analysis, computer-assisted reconstruction of performance venues, street theatre, guerilla theatre, ritual theatre, etc.