Thanks for that structure. The result looks almost exactly like what they got with tables. I had a rough start of something like that in my standard css rules and I've incorporated your stuff. Interestingly, unless I messed it up before noticing this, it looks like the table code they used in that book neglected the "vertical-align: top;" bit, too. So, their "persona" names were in the middle of the block and difficult to match to the dialog.
Actually, the table structure for the play wasn't bad at all. The problem I have with tables is that I find it difficult to see what's happening in the editor (in a viewer, it looks fine). Everything gets broken up. But, as a play, it worked fine:
Code:
<table class="tablestructure">
<tbody>
...
<tr>
<td class="tabledatacell persona" epub:type="z3998:persona"><abbr>Mrs.</abbr>*Marchmont</td>
<td class="tabledatacell">Going on to the Hartlocks’ tonight, Margaret?</td>
</tr>
...
</tbody>
</table>
So, it's basically clumps of dialog that are easily seen. Plus, as an added benefit, I managed to fix a couple of issues I was having with my standard table structure while I was playing around with it.
I'm also going to try converting part of that play over to a description list and see if it makes any difference to editor readability. But, at a guess, structurally, it will look just about the same as the table. The only difference will probably be in the syntax.