Bill Shakespeare Is Dead

Bill Shakespeare is Dead is a highbrow/lowbrow party game for at least 5 players. There are variants for 3 and 4 players.

Transport yourself back to 17th century England. Ah, the good old days. The smell of feces and dead hobos in the street. The sight of unwashed masses and the complete lack of hygiene. Isn’t it lovely? You and your fellow players are members of the King’s Men, and you make your living saying pretty words to hundreds of filthy people. Better than digging ditches, right? Well tonight is supposed to be the opening night of a brand new play. The crowds are already gathered in the Globe Theatre, and the only thing missing is your star playwright, Bill Shakespeare. As it turns out, Bill had a little too much pickled herring and a lot too much wine and is as dead as disco. Now, armed with nothing but patches of the new script and (sometimes obscene) scribbles in the margins, you all need to put on a show. Good luck!

In Bill Shakespeare is Dead, one of Shakespeare’s famous plays is split into five short acts. During each act, one person acts as the Stage Manager, and two people are randomly chosen to act out the scene. As they go through the script, the rest of the players will have to fill in missing nouns and verbs randomly drawn from the deck and helpfully shouted when there is a blank part in the script. The Stage Manager chooses which nouns and verbs go where. At the end, you can tally your points and declare a winner, if that’s your sort of thing.