Playing Shakespeares Lovers examines Shakespeares romantic characters from multiple perspectives. Contributing actors, directors, educators and scholars bring diverse and wide-ranging insights into the motives, context, history and challenges of performing Shakespeares "infinite variety" of lovers. The volume begins with an introductory essay, followed by brief essays and interviews, on various characters within the world of Shakespeares lovers.

Louis Fantasia (M.F.A., California Institute of the Arts) is the director of the Los Angeles Shakespeare Institute, a joint project of the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library-UCLA. He has served as director of the Shakespeare teacher institute at the Huntington Library, director of the London Shakespeare Globe Centre's Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance Institute and president of Deep Springs College.