Rehearsal before the Director Playwrights and Actors Taking Responsibility

Prior to the emergence of the modern director towards the end of the 19^th century the responsibility of arriving at an orderly and coherent performance was distributed amongst a number of participants. We offer here two case studies – from the 16^th and 19^th centuries, in England and Germany – in which we re-examine and interrogate archival documents to reveal a better understanding of those performance preparation processes in which they were embedded, and vice versa.