Friends, Romans, Countrymen
- Performer
- Audition / event
- Title
- Friends, Romans, Countrymen
- Attribution
- by William Shakespeare
- Source
- Public domain
- Length
- ~2 min (268 words, whole piece)
- Cut
- Full monologue (1 beat).
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen", by William Shakespeare, hosted by Monologue.Network via FreeSchoolPlays.com. Free to perform; attribution required.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men,
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen", by William Shakespeare, hosted by Monologue.Network via FreeSchoolPlays.com. Free to perform; attribution required.
Audition prep notes
Full piece: 1 beat, ~268 words -- very short (Under 2 minutes), about 2 min at a natural pace.
Start with the objective
Before you run it, name your character's objective in one sentence: what do they want in this moment, and what is in the way of getting it easily? Pace, volume, and movement all follow from that one sentence, not the other way around.
Map the beats
The current text renders as a single continuous block, with no internal paragraph breaks to key off of. Build your own beat map instead: mark every point where the character's tactic or target shifts -- a new argument, a new realization, a change in who or what they are speaking to -- and treat each as its own beat.
Pacing for this length -- very short
Economy is everything at this length: cut any preparatory movement before your first line, and land the final beat cleanly rather than adding a button. Under 2 minutes, this often plays as one unbroken thought.
Delivery approach -- Verse / Poetic
Honor the line, not just the sentence: breathe at the end of a verse line even when the punctuation runs on, and let the meter carry the emotional pulse instead of fighting it with naturalistic pauses.
Framing for All ages
This piece is written to read across age groups. Start from the plainest version of the objective -- what the character wants, and why now -- before layering in the nuance your own age and experience bring to it.
Forensics eligibility -- Poetry Interpretation
This piece reads as Poetry Interpretation. That classification is illustrative only -- not official, not an NSDA, NCFL, or UIL certification. Always verify current eligibility with your event's own published rules before entering it in competition.
Generic coaching guidance for actors preparing this piece -- not a substitute for your director's or coach's notes.
Free to read, print, and perform. No royalty, no performance fee. The credit line above is required and is placed automatically on this packet; keep it in your program and audition materials.