Friendly Folio - Beginnings

More about Beginnings

This is your chance to work the way the original actors did, either with a cast or with a class. The scenes can be presented in performance, or a class can read the scenes, enjoying the surprise of finding out what is going on by listening to each other, since none of them will have the complete script - just their Cue Scripts. All the text is in Friendly Folio format, and we have prepared the Beginnings for twenty-one of the plays, together with a guide to working this way.

With our Beginnings package, you get the Prompt Script for the first 30 minutes or so of the play, together with the associated Platt and the Chart of the scenes, showing exactly who is involved in each scene, and how many lines they have to speak. You also get the complete set of Cue Scripts for each of the characters involved in the Beginning, so that the piece can be read or performed with exactly the same information that the original actors would have had, and with all the information that Shakespeare would have supplied for that script, such as First Folio punctuation and spelling. For additional authenticity, the Cue Scripts for each character can be made up into a Role (instructions for this are included).

We have been doing such scenes with professional actors and with drama school students since the early 1980s in our Classes and Workshops, and in training actors for the Original Shakespeare Company, and have always found them to be revealing, exciting, and a great insight into the play. By doing these first scenes, the Beginnings, there is no information that the original actors would have had prior to receiving and learning their lines. Back in those days, there was no rehearsal in the modern sense of the word, and with the actors doing a different play every day of the week, there would be precious little time to do anything other than be guided by the text in each individual Part (see also Original Practices). The Platt would have dealt with such matters as the properties to be taken on stage, the order of scenes, and which actor was assigned to each role.

To help with your presentations, the Beginnings package includes as Beginnings Extras the guides: How to work with a Beginning; Acting from a Cue Script; How to make up a Role in the original way; and the famous 20 Acting Clues on acting from Folio text.

The text is exactly what is in the First Folio, with the exception of The Taming of the Shrew, which is presented without the Christopher Sly sequences in I-1 (the beggar at the start of the play, for whom the play is seemingly presented). Note that this means that Romeo and Juliet does not start with the Chorus speech, for that is only in the Quarto version of the play, although we have included this in the package as an Appendix.

Short Beginnings:

To help you match your requirements, we have also prepared shorter versions of the Beginnings:

The Comedie of Errors	Cutting the first scene I-1, with the Duke and Father.
Loves Labour's lost	Ending the last scene earlier, before the men enter.
The Merchant of Venice	Cutting the last scene II-1, with Morrocho.
A Midsommer Nights Dreame	Ending the last scene earlier, before Helena and Demetrius.
Anthonie, and Cleopatra	Cutting the last scene I-4, with Octavius and Lepidus.
Macbeth	Cutting the last scene I-7, with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
The Tempest	Ending the last scene earlier, before Ferdinand enters.

We have found that a good presentation runs at about 3½ seconds a line, including pauses and bits of stage business. Faster than that is better (we got it down to nearly 3 seconds a line with the OSC), and anything over 4 seconds a line is probably too indulgent, not allowing the verse to flow. The running times of each Beginning has therefore been calculated at either 3½ or 4 seconds a line.

We list how many lines are in the package, what the total number of people needed might be (and with doubling), what the cast break-down is, and how long it would probably run.