Book excerpt: The theatre is full of borders and boundaries: between the "real" and "illusionary" conditions of the stage, between the way one acts onstage and in "real" life, between stage and audience, performance and reception. As such, theatre offers a unique opportunity to examine the construction, representation, and functioning of borders. This is the task undertaken by the authors of this volume, the first to apply the lexicon and concepts of border theory to theatre history and performance theory. The contributors, highly regarded theatre historians, theorists, and practitioners, address a wide range of border-related themes. Their topics include the construction of "America" in the sixteenth century, theatre practices in eighteenth-century England, American Latino playwrights, performances of gender and sexuality, cyborg technologies, and fashion.