When the British monarchy was restored in 1660 and Charles II ended Parliament's eighteen-year ban on public playhouses, he entrusted the task of theatrical restoration to two playwrights who had been active at his father's court. They received patents giving them the exclusive right to perform plays in London and the existing dramatic repertory was divided between them, with the stipulation that it should be 'reformed' - that is, made fit for a stage different from the playhouse of the past. Boy actors were to be replaced by women; scenery and music would create the kind of theatre which, before the war, had been used only for court masques. The history of Shakespeare production for the next 150 years would continue to be one of reform and restoration, though the meanings of these words would be constantly changing.

Theatrical reform was accomplished quickly. The first play to feature a woman actor (as opposed to a singer) was probably Othello; the date may have been 8 December 1660. For those who remembered productions with all-male casts, the mere presence of women, even when they were not much more than animated scenery, must have been as revelatory as all-male productions are today. The scenery itself, like that of the French theatre which was its model, was primarily decorative: one prison scene, one garden scene, and so on, served for the entire repertory. After the scene had been opened by sliding shutters in grooves, the actors normally came forward to play on a projecting apron stage. Because their background could be changed behind them while they remained on stage, the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries could still be played with something of the fluidity of the unlocalized stage for which they were written.