The play-within-a-play has been a common dramatic device for centuries. Theater historians generally agree the first time the concept was employed was in the 1580s, when a mostly forgotten playwright named Thomas Kyd penned “The Spanish Tragedy.”

A rival of Kyd, some guy named William Shakespeare, frequently leaned on the device in plays such as “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “The Tempest,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and, most notably, “Hamlet.”