OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD

I FOUND IT

I FOUND HAM

I CANNOT COME CLOSE TO DESCRIBING HOW HAPPY I AM RN

Context? Nah. I played Horatio. A lot of it's crap because this was 5th grade but I'll edit as best I can. Enjoy!

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Ham (1/7 of Hamlet Prince of Denmark)

Adapted from Tom Stoppard’s Fifteen Minute Hamlet and Shake Hands
With Shakespeare by Albert Collum (with a fair bit of Heron mixed in)

Cast list:
Bernardo - Ila (she was sweet)
Horatio - Moi (hehehe you don't get my name)
Marcellus - Johann (traitor...)
Claudius - Cat (she's been cast as the bad guy ever since)
Gertrude - Linnea (ah, the queen)
Rosencrantz - Tea (left hand sock puppet)
Guildenstern - Also Tea (right hand sock puppet)
Hamlet - Millie (she was so good)
Ghost - Holden (NEVER FORGET THE DISCO PANTS)
Ophelia - Maggie (I miss her so much)
Laertes - Nathan (still A Thing)
Polonius - Willow (she misses Maggie too)
Puppeteer 1 - Ava
Puppeteer 2 - Everett
Gravedigger - Kayla (I'm like 55% sure)
Yorick - Kevin the skull (he wears a viking helmet most of the time)
Osric - Sigrid (this was the best casting decision ever and no one can change my mind)
Shakespeare - Ashton (lowkey forgot he was in this but okay)

Shakespeare:
Thank you for coming to the Herons play, Hamlet... wait, it’s not Hamlet. Oh, sorry ladies and gentlemen, it’s the Herons play “Ham” which I am being told is one seventh of my play, Hamlet; Prince of Denmark. I hope you enjoy!

(Shakespeare exits stage)

Scene 1
Castle walls. Storm. Night.

Bernardo: Who’s there?

Horatio: Nay. answer me.

Bernardo: Long live the King. Get thee to bed.

Horatio: For this relief, much thanks.

Bernardo: What, has the thing appeared again tonight?

Horatio: Peace, break thee off: look where it comes again. (Points left)

Bernardo: Looks it not like the King?

Horatio: By heaven, I charge thee speak!

Bernardo: (points and looks left) ‘Tis here

Horatio: (points and looks right) ‘Tis there

Bernardo and Horatio (looks center): Tis gone.

Horatio: But look, the morn in russet mantle clad walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

Marcellus: PERSONIFICATION!

Bernardo: Let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Ham Omelet.

Marcellus: It's Hamlet!

(Exit all)

Scene 2
A nice castle room. Flourish of trumpets as Claudius and Gertrude enter. Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are present.

Claudius: Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death, the memory be green (Gertrude, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern look very sad and nod)

(Enter Hamlet)

Our sometime sister, now our Queen,
Have we taken to wife. (Gertrude fawns over Claudius)

Marcellus: Eeeewwwie!

(Claudius swats at Marcellus)

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son ----

Hamlet: A little more than kin, and less than kind.

(Gertude and Claudius exit in a huff)

Guildenstern: How now friend? What is the matter?

Hamlet: That it should come to this – but two months dead!

Rosencrantz: Who’s dead?

Hamlet (slightly offended): My father!

Marcellus: Pay attention!

Hamlet: He was so loving to my mother: (Calls after Gertrude) Frailty,
thy name is woman!

Guildenstern (to Marcelus in stage whisper): I thought it was Gertrude!

Hamlet (sighs and continues): My mother...Married with mine uncle, my father’s brother.

Guildenstern: That’s terrible!

Hamlet (with sandwich?): The funeral baked meats did coldy furnish forth the marriage tables.

(Rozencrantz and Guildenstern pat
Hamlet’s back consolingly)

O that this too solid flesh would melt!

Marcellus: Eeeewwie!

(Rozencrantz and Guildenstern escort Marcellus off stage.)

(Horatio rushes on)

Horatio: My lord, I think I saw him yesternight – The King, your father – upon the platform where we watched.

Hamlet: Tis very strange.

Horatio: Armed, my lord – A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

Hamlet: My father’s spirit in arms? All is not well. would the night were
come!

(Lights go out, thunder rolls, maybe ghost sounds. Hamlet and Horatio stay put as castle wall is put behind them. Flashlights…Noise of partying off stage.)

Scene 3

Marcellus: That was convenient!

Hamlet: The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse.

Wind/ghost sound

Horatio: Look, my lord, it comes. (points)

(Ghost enters)

Hamlet: Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Something is rotten in the state of Denmark! Alas, poor ghost.

Ghost: I am thy father’s spirit. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

Hamlet: Murder?

Ghost: The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown.

Marcellus: (popping up from behind battlement) METAPHOR!

Hamlet: O my prophetic soul! Mine uncle?

Marcellus: Hello?! Are you new here?! Duh! Your uncle, Claudius,
murdered your father.

(Ghost exits, satisfied.)

Horatio: Can we trust the ghost?

Hamlet (to Horatio): There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

(Horatio exits)

But I must be sure the ghost speaks truth. Hereafter I shall think meet to put an antic disposition on.

Marcellus: He’s going to act crazy! (twirl fingers around head)

Hamlet: The time is out of joint. O cursed spite That ever I was born to set it right!

(Hamlet exits)

Scene 4
Castle room. Polonius and Laertes enter (kazoos?)

Laertes: Father, have I your permission to return to France, from where I came to Denmark to show duty to our new King?

Polonius: Abroad, abroad, for shame! But let me give you some advice
(Laertes looks at his watch exaggeratedly) I will be brief! Brevity is the soul of wit. Beware of entrance into a quarrel, but being in it, bear it, that the opposed may beware of thee. (Laertes begins to walk away and the Polonius continues, and Laertes makes an exaggerated return to him.) Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement. (Laertes tries to leave again) Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan often loses both itself and a friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of friendship. And, most of all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell, my son, my blessing upon thee.
(Laertes runs off stage)

(Immediately, Ophelia rushes on.)

Polonius: How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?

Ophelia: My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber, Lord Hamlet with his doublet all unbraced, no hat upon
his head, pale as his shirt-

Marcellus: SIMILE!

Ophelia: His knees knocking each other, and with a look so piteous, he
comes before me.

Polonius: Mad for thy love? I have found the very cause of Hamlet’s
lunacy.

(Hamlet enters as Ophelia exits)

Look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading. What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet: Words, words, words.

Polonius (aside): Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

Hamlet: I am but mad north northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Marcellus: Alliteration!

Polonius: Do you know me, my lord?

Hamlet: Excellent well. You are a fishmonger! (produces fish and hands it to Polonius)

Polonius (eyes wide, backing away nervously): The actors are come
hither, my lord.

(Polonius exits. Enter actor(s) with puppets on both hands.)

Hamlet: We’ll hear a play tomorrow.

(Puppets nod vigorously.)

I’ll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle. If he but blench, I know my course. The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

(Ophelia and Claudius enter)

Ophelia: My Lord!

Hamlet: Get thee to a nunnery!

Marcellus (popping up from nowhere): So not nice!

(Ophelia and Hamlet exit)

Claudius: Love? His affections do not that way tend. There’s something in his soul o’er which his melancholy sits on brood. I fear there will be some danger. It shall be so. Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

Marcellus: Couplet!

(Claudius exits.)

Scene 5
A hall within the castle. A flourish of kazoos…nothing says “castle” like
kazoos. Hamlet and Ophelia, Marcellus and Horatio, Claudius and Gertrude enter. Puppeteer is still on stage.

Hamlet: (to puppets) Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you; trippingly on the tongue. Hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature.

(Everyone sits. The puppets begin to act in an exaggerated way…maybe
one Hii yaah!s Miss Piggy fashion)

(To Gertrude) Madam, how like you the play?

Gertrude: The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.

Hamlet: He poisons him in the garden for his estate. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

(Claudius rises)

The King rises!

(General chaos. Puppets going everywhere.)

What frightened with false fire?

(Claudius exits.)

All: Give o’er the play!

Hamlet: Lights! Lights! Lights! I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand
pounds!

(Exeunt all except Polonius)

Polonius: (aside) He’s going to his mother’s closet. Behind the arras I’ll convey myself to hear the process.

Scene 6
Queen’s bedroom (closet? would it be funnier to be in a closet? Could we
make one out of a refrigerator box and roll it on stage?)

Hamlet: Now, Mother, what’s the matter?

Gertrude: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended. (He holds her)

Marcellus: Burn!

Gertrude: What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help! Help! Ho!

Polonius: (Behind the arras) Help!

Hamlet: How now? A rat? Or maybe a HAMSTER? (He stabs Polonius through the labeled Convenient Hole in the arras) Dead for a ducat, dead!

Gertrude: O me, what hast thou done?

Hamlet: Nay, I know not.

Gertrude: Alas, he’s mad.

Hamlet: I must be cruel only to be kind. Good night, Mother.

(Drags Polonius off stage with much effort and grunting. Gertrude exits,
sobbing)

Scene 7
Castle room (trumpets?) Claudius is there with Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern (Friend 1, Friend 2 t-shirts). Enter Hamlet, panting.

Rosencrantz: Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

Hamlet: At supper.

Guildenstern: At supper! Where?

Hamlet: He is not eating. He is being eaten by the worms. (slaps leg,
laughing hysterically)

Rozencrantz: Bah dum tss!

King (not amused): Where is Polonius?

Hamlet: In heaven…or in the other place.

(All backstage: Ohhhh!)

But indeed, if you find him not within the month, you will smell him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit with Hamlet)

King: Somehow I must contrive the present death of Hamlet.

Marcellus: (Cliff hanger music) Bum, bum, buuum….

ｉｉｉｎｔｅｒ ｍｉｓｓｉｏｎ!

Scene 8
Castle room? Kazoos. Enter Laertes and Claudius.

Laertes: Where is my father?

Claudius: Dead.

(Ophelia enters, singing eerily, clearly insane)

Ophelia: They bore him barefaced on the bier- Hey nonny, nonny, hey nonny. And on his grave rained many a tear…

Laertes: Oh heat dry up my brains – O kind sister.

Ophelia: Hey nonny, no…

(Trips and falled backwards into a baby pool with skull and crossbones drawn on it, labeled "Deadpool")

Laertes: Hads’t thou thy wits, and dids’t persuade revenge. It could not move thus.

Claudius: And where the offence is, let the great axe fall!

Laertes: What? What do you mean?

Marcellus: METAPHOR!

Laertes: (To Marcellus) Not helpful. (To King) What do you mean literally?

Claudius: Laertes, will you be ruled by me?

Laertes: Ay, my lord.

Claudius: I have a plot under which Hamlet shall die, and for this death
no blame shall be put on us. Even his mother shall think it an accident.

Laertes: (Sneakily) My lord, could you arrange it so that I might be the
cause of the accident?

Claudius: Exactly! There shall be a fencing challenge. I shall poison one
of the foils…you shall cut him with the poisoned tip and quickly send Hamlet to his death for your father.

Laertes: I will do it!

King: And if the plan should fail, ‘twere better if we had a second way
planned. When you and Hamlet are fencing, hot and dry, he calls for a drink… which I will poison.

Laertes: Brilliant!

(Exeunt all.)

Scene 9
Churchyard. Hamlet is wandering through. Man with shovel and skull are sitting on ground…

Gravedigger: What is ‘eh that builds stronger than either the mason, the
shipwright or the carpenter?

Hamlet: A gravemaker. the houses he makes will last till Doomsday.

Marcellus: Bah dum tss!

Grave digger gives skull to Hamlet

Hamlet: Whose was it?

Gravedigger: This same skull, Sir, was Yorick’s skull, the king’s jester.

Hamlet: Alas, poor Yorick. (Turns suddenly to audience. Spot light with
flash lights if possible… Marcellus pops out from bush and makes "blah blah blah" motion behind Hamlet) To be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream; aye there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

(Gravedigger clears his throat. Hamlet shakes himself, returns skull to
Gravedigger. Flash lights go off, all exit)

Scene 10
A hall in the castle. Enter Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, Hamlet, horatio,
Osric bearing swords (rubber chickens), guests and attendants.

Hamlet: Come on Sir!

Laertes: Come, my lord.

(They choose swords. Laertes gets the sword with skull and cross bones
painted on it obviously. Winks at audience.)

King: Begin, begin!

(They begin dueling…Hamlet touches Laertes)

Hamlet: One!

Laertes: No.

Marcellus: Trust the truthful….

Hamlet (to Osric): Judgement?

Osric: A hit, a very palpable hit.

Claudius: Stay, give me a drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine, here’s to thy health. (He drops a pearl into the goblet) Give him the cup.

Gertrude: The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

(Gertrude takes the cup)

Claudius: Gertrude, do not drink!

Gertrude: I will, my lord. (She drinks)

Laertes: My lord, I’ll hit him now!

(Hamlet and Laertes grapple and fight. Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poison sword. Hamlet knocks it from Laertes’ hand. Laertes goes to pick it up but Hamlet puts his foot on it and gives Laertes his unpoinsoned sword.)

Claudius (alarmed to see Hamlet with the poisoned sword): Part them,
they are incensed!

Hamlet: Nay. Come again!

Osric: Look to the Queen there!

(Hamlet wounds Laertes with the poisoned sword)

Horatio: How is it, my Lord Hamlet?

Osric: How is it with you, Laertes?

Laertes: Why, Osric…I am justly killed with mine own treachery.

Hamlet: How is the Queen?

King: (making excuses) She swoons to see you bleed.

Queen: No..No! the drink…the drink…I am poisoned. (dies)

Hamlet: O villainy! Let the doors be locked! Treachery, I’ll seek you out!

Laertes: I am he, Hamlet…Hamlet, thou art slain. No medicine in the world can do thee good. You’ll not live a half hour of life. The poisoned instrument is in thy hand, and I am killed by it. Lo, here I lie never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison'd…I can
speak no more. The king! The King’s to blame!

Hamlet: The point envenomed too? Then venom do thy work! (Kills
Claudius)

Laertes: Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Ha…m… (dies)

Hamlet: I am dying, Horatio. Poor mother, good-bye. Horatio, I am dying! Thou livest.. Tell them what I did was right!

Horatio: I’ll die with thee!

(Horatio attempts to drink for the poisoned cup.)

Hamlet: Give me the cup! If thou didst ever call me friend, live to tell my story! O I die, Horatio….The potent poison quite o’er crows my spirit. The rest is silence! (Hamlet dies)

Horatio: Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, and flights
of angels sing thee to thy rest!

(As Horatio mourns, all backstage enter, carrying signs "The apocalypse has begun! Throw your meteors now!" Horatio retrieves an umbrella.)

It would be worth mentioning at this point that I'm recounting what occured after the dialogue finished. None of this was actually in the script, but all of it really did happen.

(All die as soon as they are hit. Horatio hides under umbrella until onslaught is over, stands up, and points the umbrella toward the audience. It has "The end" written on the top.)

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You have this mess to thank if you've enjoyed any of what I've written. This started it all.

Ham things you need to know:
- Rubber chickens as swords
- The Deadpool
- The Convenient Hole
- Ham Sr. wore blue disco pants
- Ba dum.......        (waiting for Jens to realize it was his cue)            tss!
- Kevin is Yorick and Yorick is Kevin
- Osric is also a squirrel
- Auditions = a monologue and a death
- The cold war between Nathan and I for the part of Laertes (he won)
- This thing went from "Hey, let's do Shakespeare" to opening night in ten days
- Willow made the playbill with a Make Your Own Meteor sheet
- Erasure of gay subtext but I'm not too pissed
- Michelle is queen, always and forever. Thanks for the script, Michelle, even after four years!

Farewell, my faeries. May you gain as many inside jokes as this show created.