In Chinese traditional society, making use of natural light, trees and shadows, the Shadow Plays were ordinarily performed at night, and mainly classified as night-time drama. The concept of the time management system in traditional society can be summarized as “To work at sunrise and to rest at sunset”, and it was in contradiction with the shadow plays at night. As a result, shadow plays used to be banned or marginalized together with other night-time dramas, which profoundly affected its performance environment, organizational form and development, and even its folk content such as its industry memory. From the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the Republic of China, in the special time logic of suitability and tension, shadow plays reshaped the popular culture of traditional society and made a certain degree of complement and enrichment to the traditional time management system.