As Tiffany Stern demonstrates in her remarkable Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan, it may be possible to know more about the preparations for an early modern performance than about the performance itself. Assembling a truly daunting number of instances from archives and from references embedded in playtexts themselves, Stern offers a wonderful three-dimensional look into the process of preparing and performing plays between 1567 and 1780. This encyclopaedic study is indispensable for those interested in the conditions of England¹s early modern theatre.

• 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