# The First Folio Technique: Reading Shakespeare's Clues > What the First Folio technique is, the clues actors look for in the 1623 text (end stops, capitals, short and shared lines, verse turning to prose), why the compositors who set the type mean you should treat them as questions, and how to use them in rehearsal, worked through a scene from Macbeth. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/blog/first-folio-technique - Published: 2026-10-28 - Last updated: 2026-10-28 You've been cast in a Shakespeare, and the director hands out photocopies that look nothing like your paperback. The spelling is strange, words are capitalized in the middle of lines for no obvious reason, and the commas fall in odd places. Someone in the cast says this is the "real" text, and the clues for how to play it are all in there. They're talking about the First Folio, and a way of working from it that many classical teachers swear by. Used well, it helps you find where each thought starts and ends in a long speech. Used badly, it turns into a code you obey instead of a scene you play. The short version: read the Folio for its sentences first, where each thought really ends. Then look at the shape of the lines, the short ones, the shared ones, and the moments verse turns to prose. Treat capitals and odd spellings as questions to try out loud, not orders. And learn the version your company is using, word for word and mark for mark. ## What the First Folio is, and why actors care The First Folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. According to the [Folger Shakespeare Library](https://www.folger.edu/what-is-a-first-folio/), it was published in 1623, seven years after his death, and brought together by his friends and former colleagues John Heminge and Henry Condell. It holds 36 plays, and 18 of them had never been printed before. Without it, we might not have *Macbeth*, *Julius Caesar*, or *The Tempest* at all. Modern editions are built from texts like this one, but editors make choices. They modernize spelling, adjust punctuation, and decide how short lines should be laid out on the page. The [Interactive Shakespeare project at Holy Cross](https://college.holycross.edu/projects/isp/measure/folio/) notes that these changes to punctuation and spelling can have a significant impact on how a passage reads. That's why some actors go back to the Folio. Not because modern editors are wrong, but because the older text can show you a different set of choices, and choices are what you're looking for in rehearsal. ## The clues actors look for Two teachers are closely tied to it. Patrick Tucker, author of *Secrets of Acting Shakespeare*, built a whole working method on the Folio and on cue scripts. Neil Freeman's *Shakespeare's First Texts* argues, in the Holy Cross summary's words, that analysis of the Folio provides clues for actors, directors, and scholars. Between them, these are the clues you'll hear about. - **End stops.** A thought is finished only at a full stop, a question mark, or an exclamation point. Commas, colons, and semicolons keep it going. - **Capitals in the middle of a line.** A capitalized word inside a sentence may be one the speaker leans on. - **Line length.** A regular ten-syllable line may suggest a settled state; lines that run long or break off may suggest something stronger. - **Short and shared lines.** Broken or partial lines can point to tempo and to how characters pick up from each other. - **Verse turning to prose.** A character who drops out of verse may have changed attitude, or dropped in status. - **The look of the type.** Sometimes the Folio's typeface makes a sound easier to see on the page. Each one is a starting point for a choice, not a rule. The rest of this guide takes them one at a time, then shows them working in a real scene. ## Read the sentences, not the lines If you only take one thing from the Folio, take this. Find the full stops. Folger Theatre actor Matthew Pauli, writing for the [Folger's blog](https://www.folger.edu/blogs/folger-spotlight/worlds-page-acting-first-folio/) about Jaques' *All the world's a stage*, puts it simply: a thought is complete only at a period, question mark, or exclamation point. Commas, colons, and semicolons mark a shift in thought, not a new idea. Then he counts. The speech is twenty-seven lines of verse but only six sentences. Pauli reads that as a sign the speech should move quickly. Jaques isn't stopping after each of the seven ages. He doesn't pause until his whole thesis is out. Try it on any speech you're working on. Mark every end stop in your edition, then speak from one to the next as a single thought. You'll find where you need breath, where you've been pausing out of habit, and where a speech you thought was slow wants to move. This is the same work as finding [operative words](https://www.offbook.com/blog/operative-words-acting): you can't know what to lean on until you know where the thought starts and stops. ### Obey the marks first, then decide Writing about Tucker's method at [Everything Theatre](https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2015/11/masters-here-are-your-parts/), Lizzie Conrad Hughes describes a useful discipline: obey every punctuation mark at first. Do that, and the odd ones jump out. A full stop in the middle of what looks like one idea, or a comma where you'd expect a stop, becomes a question you can ask. Why would the thought end here? Why wouldn't it? ## Capitals, short lines, and the shape on the page Folio texts are full of capitalized words that a modern edition prints in lower case. The Holy Cross summary of Freeman's approach suggests that mid-sentence capitalization can hint at which words to emphasize, and Hughes describes capitals in Tucker's method as possible signs of importance and of personality. Line shape is the other big clue. Hughes notes that in Tucker's teaching, ten-syllable lines suggest a normal state and longer lines suggest stronger emotion. The Holy Cross page adds that broken or partial lines can show pacing and the exchange between characters. Pauli gives an example: Jaques jumps right in on a shared line, which he reads as a sign that Jaques doesn't hesitate. Verse and prose matter too. If your character speaks verse all play and then drops into prose, something has shifted. Hughes notes it may signal a change of attitude or lower status. Ask what changed in the scene just before. Our guide to [learning lines in verse](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-learn-lines-in-verse) has more on how the meter helps you remember, too. ### Sounds you can see Occasionally the printed page shows you a sound. In the last sentence of Jaques' speech, Pauli notices how many "s" sounds there are, and how visible they are in the Folio's type, as if the old man is wheezing and whistling as he fades. You don't need the Folio to hear that, but seeing it on the page can make you notice it. ## Treat the clues as questions, not orders Here's the part the enthusiasts sometimes skip. Not every mark on the page is Shakespeare's. In his introduction to the Folio text of *Julius Caesar* for the [Internet Shakespeare Editions](https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/JC_TextIntro/complete/), John D. Cox explains that scholars identified separate compositors, the workers who set the type, by their distinct habits of spelling, punctuation, and spacing. Charlton Hinman later showed that Folio punctuation was often the compositors' work. So a comma may be Shakespeare's, or it may be a compositor's. That doesn't make the clues useless. It changes what they're for. The healthiest way to use the Folio is as a set of questions for rehearsal. What happens if I don't stop here? What if I lean on that capital? What if I come in on the cue with no gap? Try each one out loud. Keep what makes the scene clearer and more alive, and drop what doesn't. The text gives you options. You still have to play a person who wants something. ## A worked example from Macbeth Here is the moment just after Duncan's murder, in the old spelling of the Folio, from the [Internet Shakespeare Editions transcription](https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Mac_F1/scene/2.2/). Macbeth has come down from the king's chamber. Lady Macbeth has been waiting. > **Macb.** I haue done the deed: Didst thou not heare a noyse? > > **Lady.** I heard the Owle schreame, and the Crickets cry. Did not you speake? > > **Macb.** When? > > **Lady.** Now. > > **Macb.** As I descended? > > **Lady.** I. > > **Macb.** Hearke, who lyes i'th'second Chamber? > > **Lady.** Donalbaine. *Macbeth*, Act 2, Scene 2, First Folio (1623), with each speech run onto one line. "I" here means "aye." Read it for the clues. Macbeth's first thought doesn't end at *deed*. There's a colon, and he goes straight on to the noise, as if he can't stay with what he's just done. Then come four tiny speeches in a row: *When? Now. As I descended? I.* Each one ends in a stop or a question mark, and none is more than three words long. Play them with a gap between each and the scene goes slack. Play them on top of each other, cue to cue, and you get two people whispering in the dark, terrified of being heard. Now the capitals. *Owle*, *Crickets*, *Chamber*. Do they mark emphasis, or nothing at all? Try both. Leaning on *Chamber* might be the moment Macbeth realizes someone was sleeping a wall away from the murder. It might also be too much. That's a rehearsal decision, which is exactly where it belongs. ## Learn the version you'll actually perform There's a practical catch. Your castmates' cues have to match yours. If your company works from a modern edition, the punctuation in your head should be the edition's, not the Folio's. Use the Folio to explore, then learn the text you'll speak on stage, mark for mark. Our guide to [memorizing Shakespeare](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-memorize-shakespeare) covers that step in detail. When you learn from cues, the marks can stay with you. In Offbook, first-letter cues replace your lines with the first letters of each word, and you can keep punctuation and capitalization visible, so you see where each thought stops while you test your recall. When those cues feel easy, hide your lines and say them from memory. Video: [Hide your lines](https://www.offbook.com/learn/hide-your-lines) (1:07) If your edition's punctuation differs from what was uploaded, you can edit the dialogue in Offbook's scene editor to match it. You can also try the [free first-letter tool](https://www.offbook.com/tools/first-letter-memorizer) on a speech without an account. Looking for a speech to try this on? Browse our [monologues](https://www.offbook.com/monologues), and when you're ready to perform it, our guide to [performing Shakespeare monologues](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-perform-shakespeare-monologues) picks up from here. ## Questions actors ask ### What is the First Folio technique? It's a way of working on Shakespeare from the 1623 First Folio text, reading its punctuation, capitals, line lengths, and shifts between verse and prose as possible clues to how a speech is played. It's associated with teachers such as Patrick Tucker and Neil Freeman. ### Do the capital letters in the First Folio mean anything? Possibly. Some teachers read a capital in the middle of a line as a hint at emphasis. Not every mark in the Folio is Shakespeare's, so treat each capital as something to try out loud, not a rule. ### Should I learn my lines from the Folio or a modern edition? Learn the version your production uses. Your castmates need to hear the cues they learned. Use the Folio as a rehearsal tool to explore choices, then speak the agreed text. ### Where can I read the First Folio for free? Several libraries and projects publish it online. The Internet Shakespeare Editions has old-spelling transcriptions of the Folio plays, and the Folger Shakespeare Library has information about its copies. ### Can I use Folio clues in an audition? Yes. Finding the end stops in the edition you'll perform is the quickest win, because it shows you where each thought begins and how fast the speech wants to move. Keep the rest for your own homework.