King Lear

This is what happens when you play favorites with your children. “Oh, that way madness lies."

Here is a detailed synopsis on Wikipedia.

For those of you who provide parts a scene at a time, this Character Chart shows all the characters' lines in each scene: King Lear

If your group reads the plays straight through in one sitting and you want to divide up the parts, we have a number of “cast” lists already divided up for you. These are text files that you can edit to suit your group. We always recommend in a straight-through read that each participant take a moment beforehand to mark their parts—then everything proceeds so smoothly.

• Cast for 7, plus a Reader for stage directions.
• Cast for 8, plus a Reader for stage directions.
• Cast for 10, plus a Reader for stage directions.

This link is to Marjorie Garber's free Harvard lecture on King Lear.

This link is to the selection from Philip Sidney's lengthy novel, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, from which Shakespeare took the story of the nobleman blinded by the work of his bastard son and convinced to destroy his true son, who turned out to be so good and kind and who pretended to lead him to the top of a cliff so he could throw himself off.

Our ISC Readers’ Edition
$9.75

This is an audio recording of the play by professional actors with sound effects:

There are so many film versions of King Lear that we hate to recommend just one! Check Amazon for the wide variety.