This chapter focuses on the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, and discusses the post-war history of West End and commercial theatre in Britain. It aims to consider the ways the commercial sector and its proprietors, producers, and productions, have been shaped by, and have responded to, the changing conditions of the industry in this period. Starting and mostly staying in one location – resolutely in the heart of London’s ‘Theatreland’ – creates a tight spatial focus in an industry which in many other ways is characterised by movement: of productions, artists, audiences, and influence. The chapter explores a long-running set of tensions between heritage and contemporaneity, culture and development, and artistic and commercial interests that have played out at both the Apollo and across the wider West End and commercial sector. It argues that the Apollo makes for a reasonably representative study of the wider history and trends in post-war commercial theatre. What emerges from its history is a picture of a sector that, despite extraordinary change in both the industry and the world in which it operates, has weathered or absorbed many of these changes and demonstrated continuity, sometimes surprising, sometimes troubling, sometimes remarkable.

Chapter 1 introduces the book in three ways: (1) by explaining the way French theatre life was organised; (2) by selected cultural overviews; (3) by comparing past and present attitudes to popular opera. After a preamble that defines genre terms used in the book, the institutional context is sketched out with reference to legal frameworks governing the ‘official’ stage, contrasted with the difficulties of popular opera. This was independent and commercial, active during the winter Fair (Saint Germain) and summer Fair (Saint Laurent) in Paris. In ‘Structures, Events and Systems’ popular theatre forms, including parodies, vaudevilles and marionette pieces, are related to legal imperatives. ‘Reflections of Society’ links popular opera to cultural contexts: events in French society; prose fiction; the tableau in theatre; and critical debates in the public sphere. ‘Chamfort’s Overview’ is an account of the most sophisticated generic definition of popular opera as it was understood before the Revolution. ‘Defending Popular Opera’ re-examines Pierre Nougaret’s problematic book De l’art du théâtre. ‘Conceptual Problems’ takes Sedaine and Monsigny’s Le Déserteur, once famous across Europe, as a case study in reception history of opéra-comique. Evidence suggests that understanding is more sought after than satisfied.

The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre since 1945 provides an overview and analysis of developments in the organization and practices of American theatre. It examines key demographic and geographical shifts post-1945 American theatre experienced in spectatorship and addresses the economic, social, and political challenges theatre artists have faced across cultural climates and geographical locations. Specifically, it explores artistic communities, collaborative practices, and theatre methodologies across mainstream, regional, and experimental theatre practices, forms, and expressions. As American theatre has embraced diversity in practice and representation, the volume examines the various creative voices, communities, and perspectives that prior to the 1940s had been mostly excluded from the theatrical landscape. This diversity has led to changing dramaturgical and theatrical languages that take us in to the twenty-first century; these shifting perspectives and evolving forms of theatrical expressions paved the ground for contemporary American theatrical innovation.

William B. Long offers a critique of prevailing assumptions on early modern acting and suggests how professional players transferred plays that originated on large public stages to palace rooms of various sizes. The actors were talented and very competent professionals. Elizabethan schooling was highly dependent upon rote memorization. Small boys had to memorize correctly and extensively, or they would have been caned. Young and adult players must have continued to memorize their lines almost effortlessly because that is the way they were trained. What did these players, accustomed as they were to playing in large public theatres, do when they moved to generally smaller areas allotted them at court? If they wished to avoid ludicrous displays of awkwardness, they adapted. For professional actors who were used to playing in varying venues when they toured provincial towns and cities, a stage platform of a few feet deeper or shallower would not have been of great consequence. Fortunately for us, a number of the rooms of court venues still exist intact. The surviving court playing venues are Hampton Court, St. James’ Windsor, and the Queen’s House Greenwich.