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The significance of human anatomy to the most physical of art forms, the theatre, has hitherto been an under-explored topic. Filling this gap, Christian Billing questions conventional wisdom regarding the one-sex anatomical model and uses a range of medical treatises to delineate an emergent two-sex paradigm of human biology. The impact such a model had on the staging of the human form in English professional theatre is also explored in appraisals of: (i) the homo-erotic significance of a two-sex paradigm; (ii) social and theatrical cross-dressing; (iii) the uses of theatrical androgyny; (iv) masculine corporality and the representation of assertive women; and (v) the theatrical poetics of human dissection. Billing supports cultural and scientific study with close-readings of Lyly, Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Dekker, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Ford. The book provides a sophisticated and original analysis of the early modern stage body as a discursive site in wider debates concerning sexuality and gender. Contents: Introduction; Man made woman: early modern anatomy and the emergence of sexual difference; Homo-erotic metamorphoses: Ide, Gallathea and Falstaff; Apparel anatomy and agency: performative challenges to masculine authority; Roaring Girls and Tragic Maids: strategies of dramatic recuperation; Misogynist anatomy: the visceral imperatives of Fordian tragedy; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index. About the Author: Christian M. Billing is Lecturer in Drama at the University of Hull, UK.