During the 1950s, when it first began, Readers Theatre was textual in its emphasis; it involved the group reading of literature and the staging of poems and poets' stories, essays, and scenes. In its second stage, during the sixties, Readers Theatre became a directors' art; it was the director who adapted and arranged the literature and whose creativity and insight gave Readers Theatre its continuing growth and energy. The third stage, now in process, is a performer-centered period in which the readers themselves become the artistic impetus for the Readers Theatre presentational form. Interpretation and Readers Theatre have for too long been defined, and their perspectives, horizons, and future have far too long been seen, only in terms of their educational setting. Complete identification with the book leads to a flat interpretation. However, with the interpreter as artistic source and with the extended dimensions of chance composition, the text again exists--presumed, subsumed, and celebrated within and through the presentational form of the readers of Readers Theatre. (LL)