William Shakespeare
Love's Labour's Lost
The full script in Final Draft, Word & PDF
The King of Navarre and three lords swear off love for study, until a visit from the Princess of France and her ladies undoes the oath.
PDFs Only
$4.99
- ✓ Stageplay PDF (112 pp.)
- ✓ Screenplay PDF (101 pp.)
- ✓ Instant download
Full Package
$12.99
- ✓ Final Draft (.fdx)
- ✓ Microsoft Word + RTF
- ✓ Screenplay + Stageplay PDFs
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All 37 plays in every format cost $99, less than 8 single Full Packages. PDFs only: $55 for all 37.
- Genre
- Comedy
- Written
- c. 1594–1595
- Setting
- The King of Navarre's park
- Scenes
- 9
- Speaking roles
- 23
- Uncut running time
- ~2h 35m
What happens in Love's Labour's Lost
Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and his companions Biron, Longaville and Dumaine vow to spend three years in study, with no women and little food or sleep. Biron points out that the vow will be broken, because the Princess of France arrives on an embassy with three ladies, Rosaline, Maria and Katharine. The court of Navarre stays outside, meeting them in the park.
Each lord falls in love and writes poems, and each is caught breaking the oath, in a scene where they eavesdrop on one another. They disguise themselves as Russians to woo the ladies, but the women trick them by swapping favours. A comic pageant of the Nine Worthies is interrupted by news that the Princess's father has died. She and the ladies set the men a year of penance before they will accept their suits, and the play ends without marriages.
See the formatting
The first page of Act I, exactly as it appears in the files you download.
The biggest roles
Share of the play's spoken words, counted from the script. 23 characters speak; 8 of them have under 1% of the text — natural candidates for doubling.
| Role | Share of the text | Speeches |
|---|---|---|
| Biron | | 165 |
| Ferdinand | | 121 |
| Princess | | 106 |
| Don Adriano De Armado | | 104 |
| Boyet | | 80 |
| Costard | | 85 |
| Rosaline | | 74 |
| Holofernes | | 56 |
For directors
Biron leads with about 23 percent of the words, with Ferdinand at 11, the Princess at 10 and Armado at 8. Nine roles exceed 5 percent, so the play spreads fairly evenly across lords, ladies and the comic characters. It has 23 speaking roles, 8 under 1 percent, so doubling is minimal and the cast is compact. Uncut it runs about 155 minutes, and the dense wordplay means audiences often need the pace of fast delivery.
Cutting notes
- Trim the long exchanges for Holofernes, Nathaniel and Costard, whose Latin and topical wordplay is the hardest to follow.
- Shorten the Nine Worthies pageant, keeping its interruptions.
- Condense the verbal contests between Biron and Rosaline and the extended wit duels in Act V.
For teachers
Students study the play's wordplay and language games, the conflict between learning and life, and the unusual ending that denies the usual comic marriages. Frequently taught passages include the opening oath scene, the eavesdropping scene in Act IV, Biron's speech on love, and the closing songs of spring and winter. The play invites discussion of how Shakespeare experiments with comic form.
Questions
Is this the complete, uncut text of Love's Labour's Lost?
Yes. Every file contains the full play — 9 scenes and about 21,200 spoken words. Cut it yourself in Word or Final Draft to fit your running time.
What is the difference between the stageplay and screenplay layouts?
The stageplay layout indents stage directions and sets dialogue full-width, like a theatre script. The screenplay layout follows film conventions: scene headings and action flush left, character names centred, dialogue in a narrower column. Both tiers include both layouts as PDFs; the Full Package adds editable Final Draft and Word files of each.
Can I use this Love's Labour's Lost script for a production or a class?
Yes. Shakespeare's plays are in the public domain, so there are no royalties to pay for staging them. Edit, stage, film or teach with these files.
How do I receive the files?
Right after checkout you land on a private download page, and the link is also emailed to you. It keeps working, so you can re-download any time.
