Theseus's Master of the Revels, a courtly producer who curates the wedding entertainment.

Who they are

Philostrate serves as Theseus's chief event planner, presenting options for the post-wedding festivities and actively trying to dissuade the Duke from choosing the Mechanicals' play. His role is to introduce the play-within-the-play, heightening audience anticipation. He has no personal arc and little relationship with other characters beyond his professional deference to Theseus.

Playing them

Play Philostrate with crisp authority and a hint of weary professionalism—he's done this many times. Deliver his warnings about the Mechanicals' play with dry, polite disdain, as if he's seen one too many amateur disasters. His final line is a simple, professional acknowledgment; no need for flourish. Tradition often presents him as a fussy, slightly exasperated courtier.

Appearance

Typically dressed in formal court attire befitting a steward, perhaps with a scroll or tablet listing the evening's entertainments. He should look tidy, efficient, and slightly officious.

Where they appear

Act 5, Scene 1 6 speeches

Shakespeare the way it was meant to be had — out loud

These plays were written to be performed, not silently read. Yorick is a rehearsal app that lets you perform them: you take a part in any of Shakespeare’s 38 plays, and Yorick reads every other role aloud, listens while you speak your lines, keeps your place, and prompts you the moment you dry.

It is built for the person who has to be off book by tech week — school and college productions, community theatre, festivals, drama students and classical auditions — and for anyone who wants to hear a scene rather than skim it. Alongside the performance you get a plain-English translation of every speech, scene context, performance notes, and the ability to ask about any line and get an answer that already knows the play, the scene and who is speaking.

The text is the public-domain Cambridge/Globe edition. Translations and notes are AI-generated rehearsal aids for actors and students, not a scholarly apparatus. Yorick runs in a browser with nothing to install, and on iPhone and Android.