Shakespeare 4+

The #1 Shakespeare App

PlayShakespeare.com

Designed for iPad

    • 4.8 • 3.1K Ratings
    • Free
    • Offers In-App Purchases

Description

The #1 Shakespeare app!

“It’s really great!”
—Kenneth Branagh, actor and director

“‘The app’s the thing.’ Hamlet was almost right. Great to see Shakespeare Pro superplaying with Shakespeare’s plays.”
—David Crystal, linguist and author of Shakespeare's Words

“The Shakespeare Pro app is simply terrific and filled with loads of wonderful information!”
—Ken Ludwig, Tony and Olivier Award Winning Playwright

Shakespeare Pro® includes the complete works of Shakespeare (41 plays, 154 sonnets and 6 poems, including apocrypha) and search the concordance to find the exact word or phrase you’re looking for (with “relaxed” searching to find words close to your search term).

Shakespeare Pro is packed with these impressive features:

••• QUALITY TEXTS are a top priority and our team spent years compiling and editing the best references available. In the updated editions, the text is even more clear and each individual character is uniquely identified.

••• FIRST FOLIOS AND QUARTOS in original spelling show the works as they were originally published in Shakespeare’s time.

••• AN INTEGRATED GLOSSARY, based on the bestselling lexicon by David & Ben Crystal, Shakespeare’s Words™ is included. Simply tapping on a word will display its definition in context (not just a general definition).

••• ADD YOUR OWN NOTES AND SHARE THEM with your students, classmates, friends, and colleagues. Organize your notes into notebooks for use in the classroom, theatre, or just to remember key facts. Then share them via email or AirDrop.

••• POWER SEARCH THE WORKS by customizing multiple parameters like gender, genre, work, language, line form, soliloquies, and more.

••• CUSTOMIZE YOUR READING EXPERIENCE by choosing from a variety of color themes, change the font family and size, display long or short character names, jump around to different scenes, and view line numbers (*read the note below about line numbering).

••• BOOKMARK YOUR FAVORITE PARTS in addition to remembering the last page you viewed. Even copy/paste that great line.

••• DETAILED SCENE BREAKDOWNS give you an overview of the scenes within each play, their locations, and the characters present in each.

••• CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS help you better understand the actions and motivations of every character—all 1,155 of them.

••• MODERN TRANSLATIONS and lexicons to help you better understand Elizabethan English (extra add-ons).

••• GET THE FACTS by reading up on Shakespeare’s life, view data and chronology about his works, and an overview of scansion terminology or rhetoric. Character Arc Visualizers show individual character arcs or allow for comparison of multiple characters.

••• SHAKE YOUR DEVICE for Shakespeare himself to display a random memorable quote or insult. Or get a new random quote every day.

••• BROWSE THE GALLERY of famous Shakespeare portraits.

••• TEACHER CURRICULUM makes it easy for teachers to introduce students to Shakespeare's works.

••• COMPLETE APOCRYPHA is the most comprehensive breakdown of 14 plays Shakespeare may have had a hand in.

••• BARDFIND™ is the easiest way to find a Shakespeare theatre or venue anywhere in the world.

These are just a few highlights of the great things in Shakespeare Pro. If you’re a student, professor, actor, or just plain love the Bard, this must-have app ensures you have the complete works at your fingertips.

Like the new features? Having trouble and need support? Let us know at support@playshakespeare.com or at http://support.playshakespeare.com.

What’s New

Version 9.2.4

Here's a snazzy update with some improvements:

• Small bug fix when selecting text
• NEW: Support added for dynamic app icons in iOS 18
• Improvements to dark mode and widgets
• Fixed an issue with highlighting search terms and highlighting characters
• Fixed a bug with song formatting and other small text improvements
• Fixed a bug with the line height setting

Shakespeare and Shakespeare Pro are now available on macOS! If you've already purchased Shakespeare Pro on iOS/iPadOS, you can now download it for free on the Mac App Store.

Did you catch any of our recent updates? Here are just some of the goodies added:

• NEW: Added a widget for StandBy mode
• NEW! Show the global line numbers, not just scene-based line numbers
• NEW! Added the titles in 20 different languages for each play (now you know what "Ιούλιος Καίσαρας" means)
• NEW! Add character disguises to their descriptions—see when people are in a disguise throughout the plays
• NEW! Add character deaths to their descriptions—see when characters die and their reason/means of death
• NEW! Add ghosts to character descriptions—see when a character is or becomes a ghost throughout the plays
• NEW! Add character ascensions and depositions—see when a character ascends in rank or is removed from power
• NEW! Search by character archetype

Ratings and Reviews

4.8 out of 5
3.1K Ratings

3.1K Ratings

Minimus inter alios ,

Bravo

This free app represents an amazing act of generosity towards all people who love Shakespeare and would like to get to know him better. Setting aside the complete texts of the plays and poems, with easy and straightforward navigation, there's heaps of information on historical aspects, a biography, portrait gallery, there's synopses, information on and analyses of characters, and much else. For anybody to put all this much together, present it in the format of a mobile app, and to offer it for free, just to make the world a better place--that is a labor of love. And a win. A big thank you. Thoroughly recommended!

Epoi ,

Orly...

Huh... I've been told by devs that the free version (which I've had for about a decade) never had line numbers. I don't think that's accurate... but let's give them the benefit of the doubt... Because line numbers don't exactly make or break the app. So I'm emending my rating to 5 stars.

Would be really annoying to discover it did, at some point, have line numbers (which I seem to remember)... I will check some of my ancient iphone backups, and rate accordingly.

In the meantime... Please (re-)institute line numbers. It's a basic feature of the format, it's not a 'bonus' in any fair sense of the word. Thanks.

Developer Response ,

No, we have never taken away any feature in 10 years! Line numbers are only available in the Pro upgrade. So you might have lost your upgrade or there might be another bug. Don't hesitate to get in touch with support to help sort it out: support@playshakespeare.com.

ertebolle ,

Wonderful + Responsive

The app itself is outstanding - clearly a labor of love, with a generous free version and a one-time-purchase business model for the pro version (in defiance of the annoying trend towards subscription everything).

Also, I had an issue with scrolling not working correctly and within a week of reporting it they fixed the bug + released an update with the fix; I’ve never seen such outstanding responsive support from a developer before.

In-App Purchases

Upgrade to Shakespeare Pro
Upgrade to Shakespeare Pro
Get a glossary, search, line numbers & more
$12.99

App Privacy

The developer, PlayShakespeare.com, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

  • Usage Data
  • Diagnostics

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

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