Romeo and Juliet: Annotated study guide, full cast performance

This full-cast recording of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet presents the play as both performance and study. Each scene is accompanied by clear, accessible annotations that unpack Shakespeare’s language, imagery, and ideas while the story unfolds. It’s a resource designed for students, teachers, and anyone wanting to explore how meaning emerges through voice, rhythm, and sound.

Production

This production started as an audio version of Romeo and Juliet read by teachers. While that production was charming, I wanted something with a little more polish to upload to YouTube and use as the basis for a series of videos, much like my work on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

I used ElevenLabs to transform my own voice into a range of characters, allowing me to create a full-cast experience while keeping the performances consistent in tone and pacing. The lines were recorded individually, often while I was eating breakfast before work. When I was teaching Romeo and Juliet, I vowed to learn a monologue every year. Reading the play again and again has given me a new appreciation for its thematic complexity and the rhythm of Shakespeare’s language.

One of the few roles I didn’t perform was the Nurse, voiced by Amanda Broxham, a legendary English and Drama teacher at East Doncaster Secondary College who brings warmth and authenticity to the role. Listening to Amanda read was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen — she delivered all of the Nurse’s lines from beginning to end flawlessly.

The sound design uses a mix of Creative Commons music and effects from Freesound and Pixabay. When there was a specific sound I couldn’t locate, I leaned on the sound-effect generation tool provided by ElevenLabs. I had a lot of fun bringing the scenes together in Adobe Audition. The performance is two hours and forty-four minutes long. The project folder is about 30 GB and contains 3,139 items. Next time around, I’m going to be more rigorous in my asset management and file naming.

While I experimented with music from a range of sources, I eventually discovered the impressive work of Australian composer Scott Buckley. A project like this wouldn’t have been possible without his talent and generosity.