This is the first volume of A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC and focuses exclusively on the theatre festivals in the city of Athens. It presents and discusses in detail all the documentary and material evidence for the Dionysia in the city of Athens, the Lenaea and the Anthesteria. It is the first comprehensive reappraisal of the Athenian theatre festivals undertaken in over seventy years and the first ever to attempt a history of the Athenian theatre as an institution which recognises the social and economic forces that underpinned it. All texts are translated and made accessible to non-specialists and specialists alike. The volume will be a fundamental work of reference for all classicists and theatre historians interested in ancient theatre and its wider historical contexts.