ABSTRACT
Penny theaters enjoyed a precarious existence in converted shops, barns, and sheds in working-class districts. They seated, on average, two hundred spectators, mostly male and aged between eight and sixteen. Proprietors were often as impoverished as the audience, while actors came from the least-respectable stratum of an already outcast profession. Shows lasted approximately forty-five minutes and consisted of comic songs, pantomimes, burlesques, and melodramas. Actors seldom followed a written script, and considerable interaction took place between the performer and the audience.
