All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts...
Jaques, As You Like It, II.7.139-142
Read Shakespeare aloud.
Choose a play and the number of people who are reading. Playerpart assigns characters from the play to each participant (or Player), trying to give everyone about the same number of lines to read. Sometimes, you get a scene where you have to read lines for two characters who are talking to each other: we call these "conflicts". Playerpart tries to minimise the number of times this happens.
Once the play and number of players is set, Playerpart shows how which characters have been allocated to each Player. It then gives each Player a copy of the script with their lines highlighted.
The more Players you have, the fewer conflicts will occur in the play-reading.
Each part shows which characters' lines the player will read.
Assign a Player to each participant. They can then click on the Player icon ( ) for the full text with their lines highlighted. Alternatively you can open a new tab or copy a direct link to a play and part by clicking the link icon ( )
Shown next to each character is the number of lines that character has, and the number of times the Player has to read lines to him- or herself (conflicts).
As you read through the play, lines belonging to your characters are highlighted in yellow.
This is the Folger Shakespeare Library edition of the play, from folger.edu
Playerpart was created by Sam Ryan and Hamish Tocher.
An algorithm written in C generates the best possible allocation of parts, aiming to keep part sizes even and minimise situations in which players have to read lines to themseves.
Our Shakespeare Club is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and is slowly making its way through all the plays.
Playerpart uses the Folger Shakespeare Library edition of the plays, with the kind permission of the Folger Library. The photographs on this website are from Dame Ngaio Marsh's Canterbury University productions of Shakespeare's plays, dating from the nineteen-forties and -fifties. They are used with the kind permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library.
Below are the original images and descriptions from the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand:
View of the entire stage set during a production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, at the Civic Theatre, Christchurch, produced by Ngaio Marsh in 1959. Photograph taken by Martin Barriball. Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image. Image reference number PAColl-0285-1-067.
Scene from a Canterbury University production of Henry V at the Little Theatre, Canterbury College, Christchurch. Taken 1945 by an unknown photographer. Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image. Image reference PA1-q-172-22-1.
Scene from Canterbury University production of Macbeth by William Shakespeare directed by Ngaio Marsh in July 1946. Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image. Image reference number PA1-q-172-02-1.
Cast of Othello from a production by Ngaio Marsh. Photograph taken ca 1940s by an unknown photographer. Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image. Image reference number PAColl-0285-1-072.