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Shakespeare’s First Folio is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, published in 1623 as Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. The contents of the book were compiled after Shakespeare’s death by his friends and colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell, both actors in the King’s Men, the playing company for which Shakespeare wrote. The pair emphasized that the book was meant to replace earlier publications, which they characterised as stol'n and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by frauds and stealths of injurious impostors, asserting that Shakespeare’s true words are now offer’d to your view cured, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them.
Using the First Folio gives players and directors a more accurate understanding of how Shakespeare intended the plays to be acted and produced. As Megan Burnett of Bellarmine University writes, The First Folio has visual clues for the actor, including capitalized words other than proper names; repeated use of specific consonants, words, and phrases; vowels added to words; changes in the spelling of some words and names; punctuation meant more for acting than reading; and split and shared lines and meter. These clues, along with others, put the creative power of acting back in the hands of the actor. Using a First Folio text can be a most thrilling and rewarding experience for the director, the actors, and the audience. Actors taught to look for and use the clues in a First Folio text are empowered to make fresh and exciting choices for their characters, mentally, vocally and physically, making the performance more entertaining and interesting for the production team, the acting company, and, most importantly, for the audience.
