DN Hamlet Scripts
DN Hamlet Scripts
DN Hamlet Scripts
The small collection of Shakespeare pieces on the Drama Notebook website have been created
and edited by professional Shakespearean actors. There are many books about teaching
Shakespeare to kids, but many of them advocate modernizing the text, which, in my opinion,
defeats the purpose of reading/performing Shakespeare.
To create an easy Shakespeare performance, use the short scripts on this website so that every
student has a meaningful role. To expand any piece, ask students to read the play in its entirety
and choose a soliloquy to add into the play. This can be completely elective, allowing interested
students to take the work further.
Additionally, students can be invited to choose a sonnet to perform either alone or with a
partner between the plays presented on performance day!
There are three versions of the plays below, each a little longer than the last. As the group
progresses, you can give them more and more of the piece.
CHARACTERS:
Storyteller
Marcellus
Hamlet
Ghost
Ophelia
Horatio
Gravedigger
Band of Players
Polonius
Laertes
STORYTELLER: When Prince Hamlet returns to Denmark for his father's funeral, his mother is
already getting married to Claudius---his uncle!
STORYTELLER: One night, after the stroke of midnight, Hamlet saw the ghost of his father.
STORYTELLER: His girlfriend, Ophelia, returns the love letters he sent her.
He hears her father, Polonius, make a noise nearby and gets angry at Ophelia for taking part in
her fathers plots against him.
STORYTELLER: Hamlet asks some traveling players to put on a play about a murder in front
of the king.
STORYTELLER: The king runs from the room and Hamlet is now sure that he is guilty.
Hamlet goes to see his mother, the queen, in her private chamber.
While they are talking he hears a sound behind the curtain.
STORYTELLER: He draws the curtain, and discovers, not the king, but his counselor, Polonius,
who had been spying on them.
HAMLET: I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room. (Drags Polonius' body away.)
STORYTELLER: Overwhelmed by the news that Hamlet has killed her father, Ophelia goes
mad.
OPHELIA: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance....I would give you some violets, but they
withered all when my father died.
STORYTELLER: Ophelia's brother, Laertes, returns home for his father's funeral. A short time
later, the Queen is the bearer of sad news.
STORYTELLER: Wandering in a graveyard with his friend Horatio, Hamlet comes upon a jolly
gravedigger.
GRAVEDIGGER. This same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick's skull, the King's jester.
STORYTELLER: The King has arranged for a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes.
Hamlet is scratched by Laertes rapier, which has a poisoned tip. Hamlet wounds Laertes with
the same sword. The Queen drinks a cup of poison meant for Hamlet. Hamlet kills the King.
CHARACTERS:
Storyteller
Marcellus
Hamlet
Ghost
Ophelia
King Claudius
Horatio
Gravedigger
Band of Players
Polonius
Laertes
STORYTELLER: When Prince Hamlet returns to Denmark for his father's funeral, his mother is
already getting married to Claudius---his uncle!
STORYTELLER: One night, after the stroke of midnight, Hamlet saw the ghost of his father.
HAMLET: Murder?
STORYTELLER: His girlfriend, Ophelia, returns the love letters he sent her.
STORYTELLER: Hamlet asks some traveling players to put on a play about a murder in front
of the king.
(This could be done as a dumbshow. The PLAYER KING formally embraces the PLAYER QUEEN.
He lies down and falls asleep. She leaves. The MURDERER comes in. He pours poison in the
PLAYER KING's ear. PLAYER KING dies. QUEEN comes back in. She formally embraces the
MURDERER. )
KING: (Who has been watching the play, along with the QUEEN.) Give me some light! (He
leaves in haste.)
HAMLET: (Draws his sword.) How now? A rat? Dead for a ducat. Dead! (Stabs Polonius.)
STORYTELLER: He draws the curtain, and discovers, not the king, but his counselor, Polonius,
who had been spying on them.
QUEEN: What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
(The GHOST appears. HAMLET sees it, but the QUEEN cannot.)
HAMLET: I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room. (Drags Polonius' body away.)
Good night, mother.
OPHELIA: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. (Gives rosemary to the KING.) Pray
you, love, remember. And there is pansies. (Gives pansies to the QUEEN.) That's for
thoughts. (To LAERTES.) I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father
died.
STORYTELLER: Ophelia's brother, Laertes, has returned home for his father's funeral. A short
time later, the Queen is the bearer of sad news.
STORYTELLER: Wandering in a graveyard with his friend Horatio, Hamlet comes upon a jolly
gravedigger.
GRAVEDIGGER: One that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she's dead. (Picks up a skull.)
This same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick's skull, the King's jester. (He hands the skull to HAMLET.)
HAMLET: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio---a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent
fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times.
STORYTELLER: The King has arranged for a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes.
QUEEN: (Takes the cup.) The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
(LAERTES wounds HAMLET. The point of his rapier is sharp. HAMLET gets the sword from him
and wounds LAERTES. The QUEEN falls.)
HAMLET: The point envenomed too? Then, venom to thy work. (Stabs KING.)
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. (Makes KING drink.) Follow my mother. (KING dies.)
I am dead, Horatio.
Had I but time---O, I could tell you---but let it be. (He falls. HORATIO goes to him.)
The rest is silence. (He dies.)
CHARACTERS:
Storyteller
Marcellus
Hamlet
Ghost
Ophelia
King Claudius
Horatio
Gravedigger
Band of Players
Polonius
Laertes
STORYTELLER: When Prince Hamlet returns to Denmark for his father's funeral, his mother is
already getting married to Claudius---his uncle! It makes Hamlet sick at heart.
STORYTELLER: Hamlet loves Ophelia and Ophelia loves him. Before leaving for France, her
brother, Laertes, warns Ophelia not to lose her heart to Hamlet. Her father Polonius forbids her
to talk to Hamlet. He gives some parting advice to Laertes.
STORYTELLER: Soldiers have seen the ghost of Hamlet's father on the night watch.
STORYTELLER: They tell Prince Hamlet. The next night, after the stroke of midnight, Hamlet
confronts his father's spirit.
HAMLET: Murder?
STORYTELLER: Hamlet's father's spirit tells him that he was murdered by his brother Claudius,
who is now married to the Queen. Hamlet wants to get revenge, but he pretends to be mad to
avoid suspicion that he is plotting against the King.
HAMLET: (Looks up from a book he is reading.) Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.
STORYTELLER: The King sends two childhood friends of Hamlet, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, to spy on Hamlet, to see why he is acting strangely. This is what Hamlet tells
them.
HAMLET: I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of
exercise, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth
seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air---look you!---this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire---why it appears nothing to
me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man, how noble
in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action
how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of
animals---and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me. No, nor
woman, neither.
STORYTELLER: His girlfriend, Ophelia, returns the love letters he sent her.
(POLONIUS and KING CLAUDIUS are spying on them. POLONIUS makes a noise. HAMLET
hears.)
Storyteller: Hamlet asks some travelling players to put on a play about a murder in front of the
King.
(This could be done as a dumbshow. The PLAYER KING formally embraces the PLAYER QUEEN.
He lies down and falls asleep. She leaves. The MURDERER comes in. He pours poison in the
PLAYER KING's ear. PLAYER KING dies. QUEEN comes back in. She formally embraces the
MURDERER. )
KING: (Who has been watching the play, along with the QUEEN.) Give me some light! (He
leaves in haste.)
(HAMLET enters.)
STORYTELLER: Hamlet goes to see his mother, the queen, in her private chamber.
HAMLET: Now, mother, what's the matter?
HAMLET: I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room. (Drags Polonius' body away.)
Good night, mother.
STORYTELLER: The King is informed that Hamlet has killed his counselor.
HAMLET: At supper.
HAMLET: Not where eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are
e'en at him.
STORYTELLER: Overwhelmed by the news that Hamlet has killed her father, Ophelia goes
mad.
OPHELIA. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. (Gives rosemary to the KING.) Pray
you, love, remember. And there is pansies. (Gives pansies to the QUEEN.) That's for
STORYTELLER: Ophelia's brother, Laertes, has returned home for his father's funeral. A short
time later, the Queen is the bearer of sad news.
STORYTELLER: Wandering in a graveyard with his friend Horatio, Hamlet comes upon a jolly
gravedigger.
GRAVEDIGGER: One that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she's dead. (Picks up a skull.)
This same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick's skull, the King's jester. (He hands the skull to HAMLET.)
HAMLET: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio---a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent
fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now---how abhorred in my
imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how
oft. Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were
wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chopfallen?
STORYTELLER: The King has arranged for a fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes.
QUEEN: (Takes the cup.) The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
HAMLET: The point envenomed too? Then, venom to thy work. (Stabs KING.)
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. (Makes KING drink.) Follow my mother. (KING dies.)
I am dead, Horatio.
Had I but time---O, I could tell you---but let it be. (He falls. HORATIO goes to him.)
The rest is silence. (He dies.)