Five Tips for Memorizing Shakespeare

Memorizing lines for any play can be daunting, but many actors find Shakespeare’s work especially anxiety-provoking.

There’s the archaic words and syntax, page-long speeches, and changes in meter to keep track of. Your teacher or director probably expects you to be not just off-book but word perfect. It’s a lot!

While it’s true that the rhythm of Shakespeare’s language, particularly the verse, can help you to remember your lines … at the end of the day, you still have to somehow find a way to make it fit in your head.

Here are five fun, confidence-boosting tips to help you tackle your script like a pro:

Learning lines? Get moving!

After all, during the performance you probably won’t spend all your time sitting, or standing still. It’s easy to think you know your lines while curled up on the couch, only to totally forget them all when you get up in the rehearsal room.

So, experiment!

Mix it up!

Try punctuating a staccato speech with marching in place or making chopping motions with your hands. Waltz around the room while your character delivers a dreamy soliloquy, lost in the imagery they’re describing. If your character is telling a story, physically act out the actions in their speech.

Besides helping keep you on task, this work can connect you to your character more viscerally. You might uncover things about why they speak the way they do, by having to physically represent their speech patterns and their choice of words.

In addition, the more robust your understanding of your character’s physicality, the better able you’ll be to retain their words.

You don’t have to keep these moves in your final performance, but they will help lift the words off the page for you. It’s a great first step towards embodying the character while you move through the world of the play.

Whatever movements you choose, remember to engage your whole body, do only what is safe for you and everyone else, and stay aware of your surroundings.

But, creatively? Don’t be afraid to try out new things and have fun. Dance, skip, walk, clean your house, even knead dough on the rhythm of your verse.

Some teachers will discourage you from recording yourself speaking your lines, and there are some good arguments against it.

You might get stuck saying your lines in a particular way, unable to vary your delivery. You might get so attached to your recorded version, you struggle to adapt, if your lines are cut or rewritten. Ultimately, if you’re not careful, the result can be a delivery that’s stale and dull, making it difficult for you to take direction or respond naturally to your scene partner’s choices.

However, if you can guard against the risks, there can be considerable benefits.

For example, if you have a commute, if you work out, or if you spend a lot of time on cooking or housework, you have the opportunity to learn your lines hands-free. If you have a day job that permits you to wear earbuds, you can even practice your lines in your downtime. (Exercise caution, and don’t get yourself in any trouble, though!)

Your lines are going to be spoken, so the sooner you can get away from having to hold a script the better. Plus, without being stuck carrying the script around, you’re free to try new blocking, engage with your surroundings, and make eye contact with your scene partners and the audience. Being off-book as soon as you can allows you to make the most of rehearsals and polish your performance. I’ve never met a director who wasn’t longing to get to that point as soon as humanly possible.

If I have enough time, when I’m preparing a role, I make two recordings.

In the first recording, I say EVERYONE’S lines. Listening to this version, I learn my cue lines more quickly, and get a pretty accurate sense of how long scenes will be. It also forces me to pay close attention to the other characters’ arcs, which gives me a clearer understanding of the story overall, as well as my own character’s.

In the second recording, I say all the other characters’ lines, but leave gaps of silence for my own. When I play the recording back, I get to say my lines out loud and in response to the other characters. It’s a great way to test myself on how well I remember my lines, and to experiment with different ways of delivering them.

Do you understand what you’re saying. Like, REALLY understand it? With many texts, particularly the classics, it can be easy to get the meaning slightly wrong, if a word has changed usage or the context isn’t clear. You can miss the significance of some lines.

Is your character using sarcasm? Is the playwright using subtext? Are you speaking Shakespearean verse written in the 1500s?

There are good reasons to take the time and write out a more modern, colloquial translation of what you’re saying. It can help you to get to the heart of your text and avoid just skimming the surface.

If your character has trouble or is unwilling to say what they really mean, you might find it helpful to delineate for yourself the difference between what they are explicitly saying and what they truly mean or wish they could say.

Many directors will ask you for a translated, up-to-date version of some, maybe all of your lines, particularly with older plays. Save yourself time and boost your confidence going into rehearsals by going through your script beforehand to answer questions on your own.

Don’t worry if you hit a roadblock with your translation — having thoughtful questions for your director or scene-mates can be valuable too, rehearsal time permitting. Being efficient with your time, and everyone else’s, is always appreciated during a production where time is precious.

Stack your words, building up to the full line and giving yourself a chance to unpack the meaning.

You’ll get to experience for yourself the build of one word following another that audiences do when they come to your performance with fresh eyes and ears, taking it all in for the first time.

Stacking your words can help you notice each one equally, helping prevent you from glossing over some of them, and stopping your brain from trying to put in an approximation of the original.

Here’s what this exercise looks like:

To stack the line “To be or not to be, that is the question.” You might sit, stand, or even lie down on the floor and say the line to yourself like this:

To.
To be.
To be or.
To be or not.
To be or not to.
To be or not to be.
To be or not to be that.
To be or not to be that is.
To be or not to be that is the.
To be or not to be that is the question.

It’s slow, painstaking work, but immensely valuable.

You can try this technique on verse or prose, on monologues or dialogue.

Depending on how much time you have, you might want to do it at least once on every single line of text, or you might want to focus on monologues or places where you’ve received notes about communicating the meaning more clearly.

Bonus: If you’ve worked on your vocal projection and translation of the text, but still don’t feel people can hear you or follow your meaning, word stacking can add valuable clarity.

Try singing your lines. Doesn’t matter if it’s silly, or if the fit between the line and music is awkward. It can be a made-up tune, improvised on the spot, or your favorite pop song.

Bonus points for pulling a Whose Line Is It Anyway? and challenging yourself to switch up genres, singing your lines in the style of opera, country music, death metal, or bubblegum pop.

If you’re going to be recording yourself for memorization purposes, you can say the lines however you like (it’s for your ears only, after all). Personally, however, I love to do silly voices for the other characters’ lines.

First of all, it stops me trying to do an impression of the other actors, or getting attached to my best guess for how they’ll say their lines. It’s much harder to get attached to a cue line being said in a particular way when it’s totally absurd in your recording.

Besides, it’s fun!

Stay loose, stay silly, even (or especially) if the play’s a tragedy.

Personal all-time favorites I like to pull out are impressions of Gingy from the Shrek films and Lola Skumpy from the series Big Mouth.

They make wonderful scene partners, and getting to run lines with them is an unforgettable experience. (Which is kind of the point!)

Shout-out to Conrad Vernon and Nick Kroll for originating those characters and inspiring so many amazing line runs.

Did any of these ideas spark your imagination? Do you have more to add? Let us know! Follow Quietly Dramatic on social media for more tips, and share this article with your friends and followers if you found it helpful. Thanks for reading!