# How to Perform Shakespeare Monologues: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

> Prepare a Shakespeare monologue step by step: paraphrase it, scan the verse, find the antithesis, map one thought per breath, learn it exactly, and time it.

- URL: https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-perform-shakespeare-monologues
- Published: 2025-06-08
- Last updated: 2026-10-07

The audition notice asks for a classical monologue, verse preferred, under two minutes. You pick a speech people say is good, open the play, and the words look like a wall. You can read it. You are not sure you could say it to a room and make anyone follow.

That feeling is normal, and it fades faster than you think. Shakespeare is not harder to act than a modern play, but the script works differently: the verse itself carries clues about stress, pace, and how the character thinks. Once you can read those clues, the speech starts doing half the work for you.

The short version: choose a speech you can own, know what every word means, scan the verse for clues, find the contrasts and the words that carry them, give each thought one breath, learn it word for word, and time it. This guide walks through each step on one real speech, so you can do the same with yours tonight.

## Choose the speech, then check your edition

Read the audition rules first, because they shape the choice. RADA's 2026 BA Acting procedure is a typical example. It asks for a [classical speech of no more than two minutes](https://www.rada.ac.uk/documents/1342/BA_acting_admissions_procedure_2026.pdf), from Shakespeare or another Elizabethan or Jacobean playwright, and suggests a character close to your age. It also warns against stitching a speech together from dialogue that depends on another character's interjections.

Our example is Viola's speech from *Twelfth Night*, Act 2, Scene 2. Viola is disguised as a young man and working for Duke Orsino, who sent her to woo Olivia for him. Olivia's steward has just chased Viola down with a ring Viola never gave. Alone, Viola works out what it means: Olivia has fallen for her disguise. It is 25 lines, a character solving a problem out loud, which is exactly what you want in a monologue.

Before you mark anything, know that the punctuation in a modern edition is mostly the editor's. The Folger editions, for instance, say they have [modernized the punctuation and spelling](https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/twelfth-night/an-introduction-to-this-text/) of the 1623 First Folio. So editions disagree. Here is Viola's first line in the [Project Gutenberg text](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/100):

> I left no ring with her; what means this lady?

The Folger text puts a full stop after "her," making it two separate thoughts. Neither is wrong, and the difference is playable: one Viola connects the two ideas in a single rush, the other stops dead, then asks. Work from one good edition, and compare a second one at the moments that puzzle you. Treat punctuation as a strong clue, not a law.

## Know what every word means

You cannot play a word you do not understand, and an audience can hear when you are guessing. So before anything else, write a plain paraphrase of the speech, line by line, in your own words. It does not need to be elegant. It needs to be precise.

- *"Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!"* Please don't let it be that she fell for how I look.
- *"Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness"* Disguise, I can see now that you are a wicked thing.
- *"How will this fadge?"* How is this going to turn out?

Look up every word you are not sure of, including the ones that look modern. Shakespeare's words sometimes meant something different then, and the notes in a good edition will catch them. When the paraphrase is done, read it aloud. If any line still feels foggy, that is the line you will mumble in the audition.

Then decide who you are talking to. In a soliloquy like Viola's, you might be thinking aloud or confiding in the audience. Either can work, but choose one, because "nobody in particular" reads as nothing in particular.

## Scan the verse for clues

Most of the verse in Shakespeare's plays is **iambic pentameter**: lines of ten syllables in five pairs, each pair going da-DUM. Romeo's line from the balcony scene is a clean example: "but SOFT, what LIGHT through YON-der WIN-dow BREAKS?" Tap the rhythm on a table as you say it. That is called scanning the line.

You scan for the rhythm, but you are really looking for the places where Shakespeare breaks it, because those breaks are often acting notes.

- **An extra syllable at the end.** Hamlet's "To be, or not to be, that is the question" has eleven syllables, ending on an unstressed one. This [feminine ending](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iambic_pentameter) is common. Try playing it as a thought that won't quite close. Viola's first line ends the same way, on "LA-dy."
- **A stressed first syllable.** *Richard III* opens "NOW is the winter of our discontent," with the stress flipped at the start. Viola's second line does it too: "FOR-tune for-BID." A flipped opening can land with extra force.
- **Squeezed syllables.** Old-spelling editions mark contractions: "charm'd" is one syllable, and "t'untie" runs two words together. They keep the line at ten beats, so honor them.
- **A short line.** In the Gutenberg text, Hamlet's "Must give us pause. There's the respect" has only eight syllables. One common reading is that the missing beats are a silence. Try it with and without a pause and see what it gives you.

Once you have found the clues, stop tapping. The beat is a map, not a way of speaking. RADA's guidance says to use your natural speaking voice for the classical speech, and that is good advice for any audition. Nobody wants to hear a special "Shakespeare voice." To fill a big room with that natural voice, try the drills in [how to project your voice on stage](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-project-your-voice-on-stage).

## Go for the antithesis, then find the operative words

The director John Barton trained generations of Royal Shakespeare Company actors in speaking verse. His 1982 television workshops, [*Playing Shakespeare*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barton_(director)), featured RSC actors including Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Ben Kingsley, and became a book in 1984 that actors still use.

In a tribute after Barton's death, Gregory Doran, then the RSC's artistic director, listed Barton's priorities, including "tell the story," "play the argument," "aim for the full stop," "respect the monosyllables," and ["go for the antithesis."](https://www.rsc.org.uk/about-us/history/key-past-people/john-barton) Barton, Doran writes, did not title his advice "How to speak Verse." He called it "How to make an audience listen."

**Antithesis** means setting one idea against its opposite. Shakespeare's characters think in contrasts, and the audience follows the argument through them. Mark Antony's "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him" is the famous example. Viola's speech is full of them:

> Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we,
>
> For such as we are made of, such we be.

Frailty against "we." Later comes "As I am man" against "As I am woman," and she ends on "O time, thou must untangle this, not I." Find every pair and let the audience hear both halves. You don't need to punch them. You need to mean the difference.

Next, find the **operative words**: the words that carry the new idea in each line. They are usually nouns and verbs, not "the" or "of." Sometimes antithesis makes a small word operative. In "None of my lord's ring? Why, he sent her none," the weight falls on "none," because the whole puzzle hangs on it.

Barton's "respect the monosyllables" matters here too. Viola's "I am the man; if it be so, as 'tis," is ten one-syllable words in a row. Lines like that slow you down on their own. Let them: it is the moment Viola stops guessing and admits what has happened.

## Give each thought one breath

A thought, in Shakespeare, usually runs to the end-stop: the period, question mark, or exclamation point. That is what Barton meant by "aim for the full stop." Carry the energy all the way to the end of the thought instead of fading as you go, and don't let the ends of lines drop. The important word is often the last one.

Count the thoughts in your speech. In the Gutenberg text, Viola's 25 lines contain sixteen end-stop marks. The early thoughts are short and jumpy, a mind catching up. The long one near the end ("As I am man... What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!") runs across four lines with only a semicolon to rest on, which tells you how much she has to say before she can stop.

Here is an exercise that makes the structure physical. Theatre for a New Audience publishes a [punctuation walk](https://tfana.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Exploring-Shakespeares-Language_-Reading-with-Punctuation.pdf), inspired by the voice teacher Cicely Berry. Speak the speech while walking, and change direction at every punctuation mark. Then walk it again and change direction only at the end-stops. Where the walk gets erratic, the character's mind probably is too.

Berry ran the voice work at the RSC from 1969, and Doran's [tribute to her](https://www.rsc.org.uk/news/rsc-artistic-director-greg-doran-pays-tribute-to-cicely-berry) notes it became the first company with a permanent full-time voice department. He describes her getting actors running around the space and filling their breath deep into their bodies, to prepare them to connect to the language.

So plan your breath by thought, not by comma. Take a breath at the start of each new thought, sized for how long that thought runs, and don't stop to breathe mid-thought unless the thought itself breaks. Patsy Rodenburg's book [*Speaking Shakespeare*](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780312294205) covers this kind of work in depth, moving from single words to lines to whole speeches, with breathing and rhythm throughout.

## Learn it word for word

Paraphrase helps you understand a speech. In performance it's a trap. With verse, a dropped or swapped word is audible, because the line suddenly limps. So the goal is exact words.

Learn it one thought at a time, not one line at a time, since the thought is what you will remember under pressure. Then chain the thoughts. When a thought is solid, test it from first letters only. Viola's last line becomes:

> O t, t m u t, n I,

That is "O time, thou must untangle this, not I," with only the first letter of each word and the punctuation kept. It is too little to read and just enough to jog the exact wording. You can turn your whole speech into cues with our [free first-letter tool](https://www.offbook.com/tools/first-letter-memorizer). For the memory side in more depth, see [how to memorize lines quickly](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-memorize-lines-quickly).

## Put it on its feet and time it

Hamlet's advice to the visiting actors still works: speak the speech "trippingly on the tongue," and don't saw the air with your hand. In practice, that means two things. Keep the pace up, because the thought moves forward and the audience follows it. And make only the moves the speech needs, such as a shift of weight or focus when a new thought begins.

Viola's speech is 207 words in the Gutenberg text. Our [monologue timer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/monologue-timer) estimates a speech at three paces, from 120 to 160 words a minute, which puts this one between about 1:18 and 1:44. That fits under a two-minute limit, but estimates don't include your pauses. Time a real run, on your feet, at performance energy, and leave a few seconds of margin. To get the words secure first, follow our guide on [how to memorize a monologue](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-memorize-a-monologue).

If you're over, cut whole thoughts rather than trimming words from inside lines, so the verse stays intact. Check the cut still makes sense to someone who has never read the play.

## A one-week plan for your monologue

1. **Day 1:** Read the whole play, or at least the scenes around your speech. Write one sentence on what the character wants in this moment.
2. **Day 2:** Paraphrase every line. Look up every word you are unsure of. Decide who you are talking to.
3. **Day 3:** Scan the verse. Mark feminine endings, flipped stresses, short lines, and contractions.
4. **Day 4:** Mark the antitheses and operative words. Do the punctuation walk. Mark where each thought ends and where you will breathe.
5. **Day 5:** Learn it thought by thought, then test from first letters.
6. **Day 6:** Run it on your feet and time it. Record a take and watch for dropped line endings and rushed antitheses.
7. **Day 7:** Two or three calm, full runs. Then leave it alone.

## Rehearsing alone, and after the audition

A monologue is the easiest kind of piece to practice alone. The best tool is still your phone's camera: record a run, watch it back, and check one thing at a time, such as whether you landed the antitheses or let the line ends drop. For a five-day memorization plan and the tools for each step, see [the best app to learn a monologue](https://www.offbook.com/blog/best-app-to-learn-a-monologue).

If the speech gets you cast, the work changes. Scenes need cues, and someone has to say the other lines. Offbook handles that: realistic voices read the other characters, it listens while you say your lines, and it gives you the next cue, so you can drill verse with a partner who never tires. Our guide to [practicing lines without a scene partner](https://www.offbook.com/blog/practice-lines-without-scene-partner) has more ways to work. Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere. To learn a part the way Shakespeare's own actors did, from their lines and cues alone, try our free [cue script maker](https://www.offbook.com/tools/cue-script-maker).

Video: [Upload a script and rehearse](https://www.offbook.com/learn/upload-and-rehearse) (1:03)

For now, pick your speech, write the paraphrase, and scan the first five lines tonight. Shakespeare wrote these words for actors to say out loud, and every clue you find is a note from a playwright who knew the stage.