Directions: Students make a large circle, working in pairs, or otherwise grouped according to the number of students available. The teacher (or someone appointed) reads the narrator’s part (in smaller type & bold), and the students are assigned the numbered quotes. They have to provide an action to accompany the line as they say it. Everyone does the “All” parts.

Twenty-minute Julius Caesar

Throughout the streets, the common people are celebrating.  Caesar has won!  Pompey has been defeated!  Now Caesar will rule.  The crowd, once supporters of Pompey, now cheer Caesar in the streets, and one of Pompey's supporters, still loyal and angry at the crowd for being fickle, shouts at them:

#1: You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

Romans are very superstitious.  During a religious festival, Caesar is approached by a soothsayer, a kind of prophet, who warns Caesar:

#2: Beware the ides of March.

Meanwhile, Caesar's friend, Brutus, is approached by Cassius.  There is a plot forming to overthrow Caesar, and Cassius tempts Brutus to join.  Brutus is hesitant:

#3: Into what dangers would you lead me——

In the streets, while Cassius and Brutus talk secretly, the crowd cheers Caesar.

ALL:        HAIL, CAESAR!

Cassius fears Caesar's power.

#4: He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus——

Caesar fears Cassius's envy.

#5: Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look——

Brutus gets secret letters urging the conspiracy.

ALL:        SPEAK, STRIKE, REDRESS!

Brutus agrees to join the conspiracy by only for the greater good of Rome.

#6: Carve him as a dish fit for the gods——

Calpurnia, Caesar's wife, has a fearful dream that foretells Caesar's murder.

#7: Your statue spouted blood in many pipes——

The conspirators follow Caesar into the Capitol, pretending to ask for favors.  The assassins surround Caesar and stab him.

ALL:      SPEAK, HANDS, FOR ME! 

Caesar faces his friend, Brutus, who delivers the coup de grace; Caesar gasps:

#8: `Et tu, Brute'?- Then fall, Caesar! 

The conspirators rejoice.

ALL:      LIBERTY! FREEDOM! TYRANNY IS DEAD!-

Antony asks to address the crowd, the conspirators agree, and Antony begins by saying …]

#9: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears

His speech incites the crowd to riot, and Antony gloats to his servants:

#10: Mischief, thou art afoot——

During the riot, Cinna the poet is mistaken for Cinna the conspirator, and, in a crazed frenzy, the crowd, no longer caring who he is, screams,

#11: Tear him to pieces; ... Tear him for his bad verses—

A war begins between forces loyal to the dead Caesar and those loyal to the conspirators.  Before a crucial battle, Caesar’s ghost comes to haunt Brutus, and Brutus says:

#12: What art thou that makes my blood cold, and my hair to stare?

Brutus’s army is defeated, and his soldiers run away, crying,

#13: Fly, fly, fly!

Antony’s conquering army discovery the body of Brutus, dead by his own hand, and Antony acknowledges Brutus’s earlier service to Rome by saying,

ALL:      THIS WAS THE NOBLEST ROMAN OF THEM ALL——