This vintage text contains a comprehensive guide to producing a play, and is intended for dramatists, dramatic critics, and the general public. It explores what transformations a play must go through before it may flourish, and contains a wealth of interesting and invaluable information on the subject. The chapters of this book include: 'The First Beginnings', 'Casting the Play', 'The Production', 'Reading the Play', 'In the Rehearsal Room', 'Further Rehearsals', 'The Play Matures', 'The Dress Rehearsal - I', 'The Dress Rehearsal - II', 'The Mise en Scéne', 'The First Night', 'After the First Night', etcetera. Karel Čapek (1890 - 1938) was a famous Czech writer of the early twentieth-century. He worked as a playwright, publisher, literary reviewer, and art critic, but is most remembered for his science fiction writing. We are republishing this antiquarian text in an affordable, modern edition, complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.