t we call the orchestra) or the dress circle (the first balcony). And this was true not only at the St. James's Theatre but throughout "Theatreland," the entertainment district in the West End of metropolitan London. For theatregoing was more than an entertainment medium or an art form: it was major leisure activity for people of all social classes, part of a network of urban activities that included private clubs, restaurants, pubs, cafes, hotels, and casinos. In the 1890s, there were over fifty theatres in greater London, most of the them in the West End, a half dozen alone along Shaftesbury Avenue, which had been completed in 1886 as part of an urban renewal plan off of Picadilly Circus...
