Some background literature:
- Bevington, David, This Wide and Universal Theater: Shakespeare in Performance Then & Now (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007)
- Butsch, Richard, The Making of American Audiences: From Stage to Television, 1750-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
- Chetwood, W.R., A General History of the Stage, from its origins in Greece to the present time (London: W. Owen, 1749)
- David, Jim and Victor Emeljanow, Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840-1880 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2001)
- Disher, M. Willson, Winkles and Champagne: Comedies and Tragedies of the Music Hall (London: B.T. Batsford, 1938)
- Downes, John, Roscius Anglicanus, or, An historical review of the stage (London: H. Playford, 1708)
- Green, Benny (ed.), The Last Empires: A Music Hall Companion (London: Pavilion Books, 1986)
- Gurr, Andrew, Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 3rd ed.)
- Hazlitt, William, A View of the English Stage (London: Robert Stodart, 1818)
- Hibbert, H.G., A Playgoer’s Memories (London: Grant Richards, 1920)
- Lawrence, W.J., Old Theatre Days and Ways (London: G. G. Harrap, 1935)
- The London stage, 1660-1800; a calendar of plays, entertainments & afterpieces, together with casts, box-receipts and contemporary comment. Compiled from the playbills, newspapers and theatrical diaries of the period (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1960-1968) [in five parts, with different editors]
- Marshall, Gail (ed.), Shakespeare in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
- Marston, Westland, Our Recent Actors: being recollections critical, and, in many instances, personal, of late distinguished performers of both sexes (Boston: Roberts berothers, 1888)
- Morley, Henry, The Journal of a London Playgoer (London: George Routledge, 1866)
- Nasaw, David, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993)
- Pedicord, Harry William, The Theatrical Public in the Time of Garrick (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1954)
- Ritchie, Fiona and Peter Sabor (eds.), Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
- Salgādo, Gāmini (ed.), Eyewitnesses of Shakespeare: first hand accounts of performances, 1590-1890 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1975)
- Shapiro, James (ed.), Shakespeare in America: An Anthology from the Revolution to Now (New York: The Library of America, 2014)
- Shaw, George Bernard, Our Theatre in the Nineties (London: Constable, 1948)
- Speaight, Robert, Shakespeare on the Stage: An illustrated history of Shakespearean performance (London: Collins, 1973)
- Springhall, John, Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta-Rap, 1830-1996 (Houndmills/London: Macmillan Press, 1998)
- Taylor, George, Players and Performances in the Victorian Theatre (Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 1989)
- Wearing, J.P., The London Stage 1890-1959 (various editions, 1976-2014)
- Wells, Stanley, Shakespeare in the Theatre: An Anthology of Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)
- Winter, William, Shakespeare on the Stage (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1911)
Theatregoing 