About As You Like It

"All the world's a stage." Shakespeare's popular pastoral comedy about love, disguises, swapped gender roles, and banishment into the woods comes to the Sunshine Coast in July 2026!

As You Like It Scripts

• AUDITION SIDES

• OUR EDITED SCRIPT v 1.5 (subject to further changes)

• Folger Shakespeare Library's plot synopsis and full unabridged script

• LitCharts side-by-side original and modern translation

Characters and number of lines

Note: our abridged edition has fewer lines, combined some smaller roles, and occasionally moves lines between parts. Roles may become smaller or bigger, as needed by casting; for example, Amiens and LeBeau have been combined from several smaller roles, and could be split apart again. We are open to cross-gender casting.

Legend: * plus one or more songs
Potentially double-cast:
$ Duke Senior and Duke Frederick
+ Adam and Corin
& Silvius and LeBeau
^ Oliver and Amiens
@ Phoebe and Audrey
% Charles and Sir Martext
# Page and Dennis
Line count source: https://www.shakespeareswords.com/Public/Characters.aspx#

As You Like It Performances and Summary Videos

Shakespeare is meant to be seen or heard, not read. In Shakespeare's day, only about 30% of men and 10% of women could read. You went to the theatre to "hear" a play.

• Globe Theatre's 16thC-period 2009 production (2 hrs 22 min) - well worth watching!

• Oxford Theatre Guild's 2020 production

• 1936 film adaptation with Laurence Olivier

• Royal Shakespeare Company summary (2 min)

• HandleBards summary using only props! (6 minutes)

• Gradesaver animated summary (9 minutes)

Actors' Resources for As You Like It

• Royal Shakespeare Company's Exploring Acting As You Like It and Character Notes

• Shakespeare With Sarah Actor's Guide to As You Like It

• Shakespeare For All's free online course, As You Like It

• OpenUniversity's free online course, Reading As You Like It

Music for As You Like It

• It Was a Lover And His Lass (score)

Actors' Resources for performing Shakespeare

• Glossary of Shakespearean words and names, with pronunciations (click the speaker icon; apostrophe comes just before the stressed syllable)

• For natural yet powerful delivery of Shakespeare's words, few can match Benedict Cumberbatch. Watch his Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech.

• ShakespeareWithSarah Youtube channel

  • Speaking in iambic pentameter

  • How to act Shakespeare

• Ben Crystal's ShakespeareOnToast Youtube channel

  • What's Iambic Pentameter? (5 min)

  • How to Map a Shakespeare Speech (18 min, well worth it)

  • The First Folio, and a 1676 working script copy (9 min)

  • Although Shakespearean Original Pronunciation (10 min, shot in the Globe Theatre) is fascinating, our production will be (mostly) in ordinary Western Canadian.

• What is an Italian Run?

• Theatre Pro app (iPhone or iPad, $17) bundle of Shakespeare Pro, Script To Go, and Soliloquy Pro

Renaissance Dance teaching videos

• Galliard (also "Cinquepace" after its five steps - or, if you're Sir Toby, "Sink-a-pace"), a fast triple-meter kicking dance

• Coranto (also "Courante"), a not-so-fast triple-meter skipping dance

• Bransle (Washerwoman's Bransle - we like the scolding fingers), a duple-meter stomping dance

• Pavan (also "pavane" or "pavin"), a stately duple-meter parade around the room, to show off your fancy clothes

Sunshine Coast Community Shakespeare Project

coastshakespeare ( at ) gmail.com

We are fortunate and grateful to work and play in ch'atlich (Sechelt), on the unceded ancestral lands of the shíshálh Nation.