This thesis will explore one of the underlying factors contributing to the explosion of dramatic literature at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries: the commercial infrastructure which provided relative stability to the professional London theatre industry. Informed by the strong commercial viewpoint of an experienced contemporary theatre producer, its aim will be to uncover what it may have cost to run a successful theatre business and what that business and some of its participants may have earned and will assess what constituted financial success for owners and practitioners.