Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan

Description: Attention is often given to the performance of a text, but not to the shaping process behind that performance. The question of rehearsal is seldom confronted directly, though important textual moments - like revision - are often attributed to it. Furthermore, up until now, facts about theatrical rehearsal have been considered irrecoverable.

In this groundbreaking new study, Tiffany Stern gathers together two centuries' worth of historical material which shows how actors received and responded to their parts, and how rehearsal affected the creation and revision of plays. 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, and in so doing throws new light on textual revision and transforms accepted notions of Renaissance, Restoration, and eighteenth-century theatrical practice. Plotting theatrical change over time, this book will revolutionize the fields of textual and theatre history alike.

Review Quotes: "This book, the first on the subject, is both timely and valuable for stage historians and performance critics ... Stern offers synthesis and stimulating reinterpretation"--Sixteenth Century Journal

"It deserves to become a long-lived reference work.... This is a mature book, one based on a reassuringly large and diverse body of evidence, moving from Shakespeare's to Garrick's theatre with no sense of strain, and elegantly written throughout, with several good new stories for connoisseurs of theatrical anecdote.... Its wide range makes it of especial use for Restoration and eighteenth-century material."--Alison Shell, Times Literary Supplement

"Stern's remarkable volume transforms our understanding of the construction and production of early modern English theatrical texts and the importance of considering the role of theatrical practice in creating the works of different historical periods of English drama...Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan is likely to become indispensable
for any serious student of English theatrical history." --Eighteenth-Century Studies