Documents of Performance in Early Modern England

As well as ''play-makers'' and ''poets'' playwrights of the early modern period were known as ''play-patchers'' because their texts were made from separate documents. This book is the first to consider all the papers created by authors and theatres by the time of the opening performance recovering types of script not previously known to have existed. With chapters on plot-scenarios arguments playbills prologues and epilogues songs staged scrolls backstage-plots and parts it shows how textually distinct production was from any single unified book. And as performance documents were easily lost relegated or reused the story of a play''s patchy creation also becomes the story of its co-authorship cuts revisions and additions. Using a large body of fresh evidence Documents of Performance in Early Modern England brings a wholly new reading to printed and manuscript playbooks of the Shakespearean period redefining what a play and what a playwright actually is.