This study examines women's roles in the work of Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists from the point of view of the boy actors who actually took on the diverse and multi-faceted parts. The author reveals how roles were tailored to boys' vocal and emotional abilities, and how they were trained to act. Examining all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, as well as 30 of those by his contemporaries, Joy Leslie Gibson argues that the emotions of parts were within the cognisance of boys of the period given the different circumstances of their upbringing from boys of today. She also examines cross-dressing, the part it played in Elizabethan society, and how it aided the boys.