# The School for Scandal: every role by lines, words, and stage time > Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 20 speaking roles, 24,495 words, about 175 minutes of speech. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/plays/the-school-for-scandal - Last updated: 2026-10-08 **Sir Peter** has the most to say in The School for Scandal: about 532 lines and 4,382 words, 17.9% of the play. Sheridan’s comedy follows Sir Oliver, who returns from abroad to test his two nephews, the smooth Joseph Surface and the spendthrift Charles Surface. Sir Peter has the most words, about 18%, but the load is spread widely. Charles Surface, the third-largest part, does not speak until Act 3, Scene 3. - Speaking roles: 20 - Scenes: 14 - Words: 24,495 - Speech time: 175 min ## Every role, largest first | Role | Lines | Words | Share | Minutes | Scenes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Sir Peter | 532 | 4,382 | 17.9% | 31.3 | 8 | | Joseph Surface | 428 | 3,484 | 14.2% | 24.9 | 5 | | Charles Surface | 366 | 3,019 | 12.3% | 21.6 | 4 | | Sir Oliver | 346 | 2,782 | 11.4% | 19.9 | 9 | | Lady Teazle | 254 | 2,103 | 8.6% | 15.0 | 5 | | Rowley | 180 | 1,466 | 6% | 10.5 | 8 | | Mrs. Candour | 154 | 1,290 | 5.3% | 9.2 | 3 | | Lady Sneerwell | 154 | 1,241 | 5.1% | 8.9 | 4 | | Crabtree | 126 | 1,023 | 4.2% | 7.3 | 3 | | Sir Benjamin | 123 | 974 | 4% | 7.0 | 3 | | Snake | 67 | 578 | 2.4% | 4.1 | 2 | | Maria | 66 | 545 | 2.2% | 3.9 | 4 | | Careless | 64 | 495 | 2% | 3.5 | 2 | | Moses | 63 | 415 | 1.7% | 3.0 | 5 | | Trip | 34 | 291 | 1.2% | 2.1 | 2 | | Sir Harry | 21 | 194 | 0.8% | 1.4 | 1 | | Servant | 19 | 139 | 0.6% | 1.0 | 3 | | 2nd Gentleman | 4 | 26 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 | | 1st Gentleman | 4 | 25 | 0.1% | 0.2 | 1 | | Maid | 2 | 18 | 0.1% | 0.1 | 1 | ## Who speaks in which scene Words each role speaks in each scene (scene: words). Scenes: 1.1 = Act 1, Scene 1; 1.2 = Act 1, Scene 2; 2.1 = Act 2, Scene 1; 2.2 = Act 2, Scene 2; 2.3 = Act 2, Scene 3; 3.1 = Act 3, Scene 1; 3.2 = Act 3, Scene 2; 3.3 = Act 3, Scene 3; 4.1 = Act 4, Scene 1; 4.2 = Act 4, Scene 2; 4.3 = Act 4, Scene 3; 5.1 = Act 5, Scene 1; 5.2 = Act 5, Scene 2; 5.3 = Act 5, Scene 3. - **Sir Peter**: 1.2 (656), 2.1 (539), 2.2 (265), 2.3 (134), 3.1 (1,004), 4.3 (1,111), 5.2 (428), 5.3 (245) - **Joseph Surface**: 1.1 (489), 2.2 (333), 4.3 (1,470), 5.1 (685), 5.3 (507) - **Charles Surface**: 3.3 (981), 4.1 (991), 4.3 (621), 5.3 (426) - **Sir Oliver**: 2.3 (482), 3.1 (254), 3.2 (153), 3.3 (500), 4.1 (344), 4.2 (141), 5.1 (222), 5.2 (357), 5.3 (329) - **Lady Teazle**: 2.1 (481), 2.2 (433), 3.1 (469), 4.3 (579), 5.3 (141) - **Rowley**: 1.2 (225), 2.3 (166), 3.1 (384), 4.1 (51), 4.2 (71), 5.1 (252), 5.2 (220), 5.3 (97) - **Mrs. Candour**: 1.1 (572), 2.2 (369), 5.2 (349) - **Lady Sneerwell**: 1.1 (757), 2.2 (192), 5.2 (72), 5.3 (220) - **Crabtree**: 1.1 (548), 2.2 (156), 5.2 (319) - **Sir Benjamin**: 1.1 (327), 2.2 (310), 5.2 (337) - **Snake**: 1.1 (467), 5.3 (111) - **Maria**: 1.1 (218), 2.2 (126), 3.1 (143), 5.3 (58) - **Careless**: 3.3 (316), 4.1 (179) ## The longest speeches | Speech | Scene | Words | Lines | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Sir Peter: “When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect? ’Tis now six months since Lady Teazle made me the happiest of men—and I have been the most miserable dog ever since! We tifted a little going to church, and fairly quarrelled before the bells had done ringing. I was more than once nearly choked with gall during the honeymoon, and had lost all comfort in life before my friends had done wishing me joy. Yet I chose with caution—a girl bred wholly in the country, who never knew luxury beyond one silk gown, nor dissipation above the annual gala of a race ball. Yet she now plays her part in all the extravagant fopperies of fashion and the town with as ready a grace as if she never had seen a bush or a grass-plot out of Grosvenor Square! I am sneered at by all my acquaintance, and paragraphed in the newspapers. She dissipates my fortune, and contradicts all my humours; yet the worst of it is, I doubt I love her, or I should never bear all this. However, I’ll never be weak enough to own it.” | Act 1, Scene 2 | 194 | 20 | | Sir Harry: “Egad, so I have! and I’ll give him the song instead of the lady.” | Act 3, Scene 3 | 192 | 20 | | Mrs. Candour: “To be sure they are; talebearers are as bad as the tale-makers—’tis an old observation, and a very true one: but what’s to be done, as I said before? how will you prevent people from talking? Today, Mrs. Clackitt assured me, Mr. and Mrs. Honeymoon were at last become mere man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. She likewise hinted that a certain widow, in the next street, had got rid of her dropsy and recovered her shape in a most surprising manner. At the same time Miss Tattle, who was by affirmed, that Lord Buffalo had discovered his lady at a house of no extraordinary fame; and that Sir Harry Bouquet and Tom Saunter were to measure swords on a similar provocation.—But, Lord, do you think I would report these things? No, no! talebearers as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers.” | Act 1, Scene 1 | 150 | 15 | | Sir Peter: “I am sure I wish to think well of her, and to remove all ground of quarrel between us. She has lately reproached me more than once with having made no settlement on her; and, in our last quarrel, she almost hinted that she should not break her heart if I was dead. Now, as we seem to differ in our ideas of expense, I have resolved she shall have her own way, and be her own mistress in that respect for the future; and, if I were to die, she will find I have not been inattentive to her interest while living. Here, my friend, are the drafts of two deeds, which I wish to have your opinion on.—By one, she will enjoy eight hundred a year independent while I live; and by the other, the bulk of my fortune at my death.” | Act 4, Scene 3 | 145 | 15 | | Crabtree: “Why, one evening at Mrs. Ponto’s assembly, the conversation happened to turn on the breeding Nova Scotia sheep in this country. Says a young lady in company, “I have known instances of it; for Miss Letitia Piper, a first cousin of mine, had a Nova Scotia sheep that produced her twins.”—“What!” cries the old Dowager Lady Dundizzy (who you know is as deaf as a post), “has Miss Piper had twins?”—This mistake, as you may imagine, threw the whole company into a fit of laughter. However ’twas the next morning everywhere reported, and in a few days believed by the whole town, that Miss Letitia Piper had actually been brought to bed of a fine boy and girl: and in less than a week there were people who could name the father, and the farmhouse where the babies were put to nurse.” | Act 1, Scene 1 | 144 | 15 | | Snake: “I do. Here are two young men, to whom Sir Peter has acted as a kind of guardian since their father’s death; the eldest possessing the most amiable character, and universally well spoken of—the youngest, the most dissipated and extravagant young fellow in the kingdom, without friends or character: the former an avowed admirer of your ladyship, and apparently your favourite; the latter attached to Maria, Sir Peter’s ward, and confessedly beloved by her. Now, on the face of these circumstances, it is utterly unaccountable to me, why you, the widow of a city knight, with a good jointure, should not close with the passion of a man of such character and expectations as Mr. Surface; and more so why you should be so uncommonly earnest to destroy the mutual attachment subsisting between his brother Charles and Maria.” | Act 1, Scene 1 | 139 | 14 | | Charles Surface: “Sir Peter, this is one of the smartest French milliners I ever saw. Egad, you seem all to have been diverting yourselves here at hide and seek, and I don’t see who is out of the secret. Shall I beg your ladyship to inform me? Not a word!—Brother, will you be pleased to explain this matter? What! is Morality dumb too?—Sir Peter, though I found you in the dark, perhaps you are not so now! All mute!—Well—though I can make nothing of the affair, I suppose you perfectly understand one another; so I will leave you to yourselves.— Brother, I’m sorry to find you have given that worthy man grounds for so much uneasiness.—Sir Peter! there’s nothing in the world so noble as a man of sentiment!” | Act 4, Scene 3 | 132 | 14 | | Sir Peter: “You are wrong, Master Rowley. On their father’s death, you know, I acted as a kind of guardian to them both, till their uncle Sir Oliver’s liberality gave them an early independence: of course, no person could have more opportunities of judging of their hearts, and I was never mistaken in my life. Joseph is indeed a model of the young men of the age. He is a man of sentiment, and acts up to the sentiments he professes, but, for the other, take my word for ’t, if he had any grain of virtue by descent, he has dissipated it with the rest of his inheritance. Ah! my old friend, Sir Oliver, will be deeply mortified when he finds how part of his bounty has been misapplied.” | Act 1, Scene 2 | 128 | 13 | | Lady Teazle: “No, sir; she has recovered her senses, and your own arts have furnished her with the means.—Sir Peter, I do not expect you to credit me—but the tenderness you expressed for me, when I am sure you could not think I was a witness to it, has so penetrated to my heart, that had I left the place without the shame of this discovery, my future life should have spoken the sincerity of my gratitude. As for that smooth-tongued hypocrite, who would have seduced the wife of his too credulous friend, while he affected honourable addresses to his ward—I behold him now in a light so truly despicable, that I shall never again respect myself for having listened to him.” | Act 4, Scene 3 | 123 | 13 | | Charles Surface: “Pshaw! have done. Sir, my friend Moses is a very honest fellow, but a little slow at expression: he’ll be an hour giving us our titles. Mr. Premium, the plain state of the matter is this: I am an extravagant young fellow who wants to borrow money; you I take to be a prudent old fellow, who have got money to lend. I am blockhead enough to give fifty percent sooner than not have it; and you, I presume, are rogue enough to take a hundred if you can get it. Now, sir, you see we are acquainted at once, and may proceed to business without farther ceremony.” | Act 3, Scene 3 | 108 | 11 | ## Small roles that can be doubled These pairs of small roles never speak in the same scene, so one actor could play both. Check entrances and silent appearances in your script before you cast it this way. - Crabtree and Careless - Crabtree and Moses - Crabtree and Trip - Crabtree and Sir Harry - Crabtree and 2nd Gentleman - Crabtree and 1st Gentleman - Sir Benjamin and Careless - Sir Benjamin and Moses - Sir Benjamin and Trip - Sir Benjamin and Sir Harry - Sir Benjamin and 2nd Gentleman - Sir Benjamin and 1st Gentleman ## Questions actors ask ### Who has the most lines in The School for Scandal? Sir Peter, with about 532 lines and 4,382 words, 17.9% of everything spoken in the play. Joseph Surface is next, with about 428 lines (14.2%). ### How long is The School for Scandal? The full text has 24,495 spoken words, about 175 minutes at 140 words a minute before pauses, scene changes, and cuts. Most productions cut the text, so running times vary. ### How many speaking roles are in The School for Scandal? 20 named roles speak in this edition, across 14 scenes. 7 of them have less than 2% of the words, which is why small parts are often doubled. ## How we count Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/richard-brinsley-sheridan/the-school-for-scandal) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).