Javanese shadow play is an old tradition in Indonesian culture. For hundred of years, this theater has been able to sustain itself because of its ability to adapt with the changing context. This book investigates both the phenomenon of shadow play as a semiotic tradition and the the power of tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics to elucidate the conditions of meaning making relevant to the theater, including the internal relation of structure and external relationship pertaining to context of dalang preparation.