About the Book:

The Fifteen Minute Hamlet is a one-act comedy by Tom Stoppard. Not familiar with the story of Hamlet? Tom Stoppard has you covered with a whip-smart, comedic crash course in The Fifteen Minute Hamlet. Offers a breathless condensation of the entire plot of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, hitting all the key scenes and lines in 15 minutes or less!

The Fifteen Minute Hamlet is a comedic abridgement of William Shakespeare's longest play Hamlet. Following his success with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard continues his association with Hamlet by taking the most famous and best loved lines from Shakespeare's play about the angst-riddled prince of Denmark and condensing them into a hilarious fifteen minute version. The multitude of characters is played by six actors with hectic doubling, and the action takes place at an abridged Elsinore Castle. This miraculous feat is followed by an encore that presents the whole play in a two minute version!

The Fifteen Minute Hamlet was first performed in 1976 on the terraces of the National Theatre in London. First Broadway production was in 1992 at the Criterion Theatre Stage Right on a double-bill with The Real Inspector Hound.

Cast: 2 female, 4 male

About the Playwright:

Sir Tom Stoppard (1937-2025) was a British playwright often hailed as among the greatest of his generation. Born Tomáš Sträussler in what was then Czechoslovakia, the family fled at the onset of the Nazi invasion finally settling in England when he was eight, and Stoppard adopted the last name of his stepfather. He was catapulted into the front ranks of modern playwrights overnight when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened in London in 1967. He wrote prolifically for TV, radio, and stage in a career that spanned six decades and also included a parallel career as a Hollywood script doctor, much in demand to provide dialogue to others' film scripts, and shared a best-screenplay Oscar for his contribution to Shakespeare in Love. He was knighted in 1997 and became one of the most honoured dramatists in British theatre.