Attention is often given to the performance of a text, but not to the shaping process behind that performance. This is the first history of the subject, from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth. It examines the nature and changing content of rehearsal, drawing on a mass of autobiographical, textual, and journalistic sources.

• Conventions and references


• Introduction


• Rehearsal in the theatres of Peter Quince and Ben Jonson


• Rehearsal in Shakespeare's theatre


• Rehearsal in Betterton 's theatre


• Rehearsal in Cibber 's theatre


• Rehearsal in Garrick 's theatre - and later


• Bibliography


• Index