After its last performance at the Gaiety in 1872, "Thespis" appears to have remained unperformed until 1953, although an attempted reconstruction from the 1940s has been discovered. Tillett and Spencer, who discovered the ballet music, identified twenty separate reconstructions of "Thespis" between 1953 and 2002. About half of these use music adapted from Sullivan's other works; the others use new music for all but the surviving songs, or, in a few cases, re-compose those as well. No version has become predominant in recent productions.