Until now, there has been no general reference work that describes the various stagings of Kleist's plays since the first performance of Die Familie Schroffenstein in 1804. Several dissertations dealing with the stage history of individual works appeared between 1920 and 1932 and some articles discussing influential individual productions have been published. In Kleist on Stage, 1804-1987, however, William Reeve has used the reviews of newspaper critics during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to provide the first general survey of the reception of Kleist's seven completed dramas.

Since an account of every known staging would require several volumes, Kleist on Stage is limited to major productions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland that attracted more than the usual press coverage, and to interpretations and adaptations outside the German-speaking countries. Reeve presents a chronological stage history of each of the plays, beginning with Die Familie Schroffenstein and ending with Prinz Friedrich von Homburg. He also discusses some of the problems faced by a director attempting to put a Kleistian drama on stage, and pleads for greater understanding and cooperation between the academic and theatrical traditions.