One of the first and most important Italian playwrights to move away from the commedia dell’arte tradition of improvisation, Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) wrote more naturalistic “comedies of character” that featured the dialect and situations of everyday life in Venice. Five Comedies collects a selection of Goldoni’s finest plays, annotated and translated into English: The New House , The Coffee House , and “The Holiday Trilogy” ( Off to the Country , Adventures in the Country , and Back from the Country ). Editor Michael Hackett provides an introduction to Goldoni and his performance tradition for directors, actors, and designers, revealing the masterful construction of Goldoni’s plays, while an afterword by Cesare de Michelis carefully reconstructs the playwright’s life and times.