Friendly Folio - Plays

More about Plays

The 'fair' copy of the play was called the Book, and was often written out by a professional scribe. This was used both as the source for the Parts or Sides, and for the Book-holder (or prompter) to use during performances to keep the actors to the text.

There were four elements to a play:
the Book,
the Parts,
the Platt,
the Inserts (the letters, songs, prologues and epilogues).

We have evidence that the shortest time from a play being delivered to the theatre manager (in this case Philip Henslowe of the Rose Theatre) and its first performance was ten days, so all the work of preparation must have been very speedy indeed, as we discuss in Original Practices.

The text you get is that of the First Folio (except Pericles, which is taken from the Third Folio), with the Speech Headings standardised, and with a full cast list, with notes as to where doubling is often used, and which characters have been added to scenes. Scene and Act divisions have been added, and the few changes made to the Folio text all marked with an *, with a list at the end of what these changes are. If a change (most often a stage instruction) originates from a Quarto version of the play, then this is noted.

If you click on the title of a play, you can also find out what else we have connected with it: the complete set of Parts, whether it is a Beginning, and all the Speeches from that play. The spelling of the title is that of the First Folio, but if you use the search function other spellings will also bring up the play you want.