William Shakespeare
The Tempest
The full script in Final Draft, Word & PDF
Prospero uses magic to bring his enemies to his island, where he plans to settle old scores and secure his daughter's future.
PDFs Only
$4.99
- ✓ Stageplay PDF (86 pp.)
- ✓ Screenplay PDF (76 pp.)
- ✓ Instant download
Full Package
$12.99
- ✓ Final Draft (.fdx)
- ✓ Microsoft Word + RTF
- ✓ Screenplay + Stageplay PDFs
Need more than a few plays?
All 37 plays in every format cost $99, less than 8 single Full Packages. PDFs only: $55 for all 37.
- Genre
- Romance
- Written
- c. 1610–1611
- Setting
- An island in the Mediterranean
- Scenes
- 9
- Speaking roles
- 22
- Uncut running time
- ~2h 00m
What happens in The Tempest
Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, was cast adrift years ago with his daughter Miranda by his brother Antonio. Now he lives on a remote island with the spirit Ariel and the island's native Caliban as servants. When a ship carrying Antonio, King Alonso of Naples and their company passes by, Prospero raises a storm that wrecks it and scatters the survivors.
Alonso's son Ferdinand meets Miranda, and the two fall in love. Elsewhere on the island, Antonio and Sebastian plot to murder Alonso, while the drunken Stephano and Trinculo are drawn into a plot by Caliban against Prospero. Prospero must decide between revenge and forgiveness, and what to do with his powers.
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. 22 characters speak; 8 of them have under 1% of the text — natural candidates for doubling.
| Role | Share of the text | Speeches |
|---|---|---|
| Prospero | | 133 |
| Caliban | | 52 |
| Stephano | | 63 |
| Gonzalo | | 53 |
| Ariel | | 47 |
| Ferdinand | | 31 |
| Antonio | | 57 |
| Miranda | | 49 |
For directors
Prospero holds 29.3% of the words, and the other roles are well spread: Caliban (8.4%), Stephano (8.1%), Gonzalo (7.2%), Ariel (7.1%), Ferdinand (6.4%), with nine roles over 5%. Twenty-two speaking roles in 9 scenes is a small company, and Ariel, the masque spirits and the mariners are natural candidates for doubling. At about 2 hours uncut, it is one of the shorter evenings.
Cutting notes
- The wedding masque in 4.1 is often shortened or cut, since it depends on elaborate spectacle.
- Stephano and Trinculo's drunken comic scenes are commonly trimmed.
- Prospero's long opening narration to Miranda in 1.2 is frequently condensed.
For teachers
Typical topics include power and forgiveness, colonialism and the figure of Caliban, illusion and theatre, and Shakespeare's last solo-written play. Students often examine the storm in 1.1, Prospero's exposition to Miranda in 1.2, the plot against Caliban in Act 3, and Prospero's farewell to magic in 5.1. The play is also widely read in postcolonial criticism.
Questions
Is this the complete, uncut text of The Tempest?
Yes. Every file contains the full play — 9 scenes and about 16,100 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 The Tempest 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.
