THE DREAM FACTORY London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare

Carpenters and landlords stand alongside playwrights and actors in this lively audiobook history of London's first commercial theaters. The very first, The Theater, opened in 1576, and its history chronicles the birth of British theater. Renaissance scholar Swift works from scraps--leases, lawsuits, lumber prices, apprenticeship figures, plague deaths, and the names of actor Richard Burbage's children. Matthew Lloyd Davies, whose dramatic narrations have animated dozens of genre novels and melodramas, captures all the flair and bustle of that fertile time. Most scholars and filmmakers track Shakespeare backward from his plays. This narrative evokes not only a single unique author but also the conditions and circumstances in which a working genius could flourish. A rich audiobook about London's first theater is fueled by Davies' word-perfect delivery. [Published: JANUARY 2026]