Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent

Richard, Richard III, Act 1 Scene 1, by William Shakespeare. Public domain. Intro and performance note by FreeSchoolPlays.com.

THE SPEECH IN PLAIN WORDS

The long war is over and Richard's family, the House of York, has won. Everyone else is celebrating peace, dancing, and falling in love. Richard, alone on stage, admits he has no taste for any of it. Because he feels shut out of that happy world, he decides he would rather be the one who stirs up trouble -- and he tells us, plainly, the schemes he has already set in motion.

THE MONOLOGUE

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them --
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the King
In deadly hate the one against the other;
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mewed up
About a prophecy which says that "G"
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.

PERFORMANCE NOTE

Start easy and almost warm -- the first lines describe a party you are watching from the edge. The turn comes at "But I," where the tone drops and hardens. Don't rush to menace; let the audience feel him decide, in real time, to become the villain. The last line is a private aside -- lower your voice and let the mask come back up as Clarence enters.

This is the full, unaltered public-domain text (US); the introduction and performance note are by Monologue.Network via FreeSchoolPlays.com. Free to perform -- a single credit line is the only requirement.

Audition prep notes

Full piece: 1 beat, ~309 words -- short (2–4 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 -- short

This is the classic audition length: build one clear arc from an opening state to a changed state by the end, with a single clean tactic shift in the middle to show range without over-plotting.

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.

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