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Tom Snout

A Midsummer Night's Dream · 7 speeches across 2 scenes

Tom Snout, a tinker, is a bumbling artisan who plays the Wall in the Mechanicals' play.

Who they are

Snout is one of the six Mechanicals, tasked with staging Pyramus and Thisbe. He nervously plays Wall, miming a cranny with his fingers, and shares fellow actors' comic terror at Bottom's transformation. His minimal lines and physical performance deliver the play's slapstick mockery of amateur theatre. He lacks a distinct arc, serving as ensemble comic relief.

Playing them

Play Snout as earnest and easily rattled; his panic over the lion and Bottom's ass-head should be childlike. Use a stiff, literal physicality for Wall—freeze rigidly, part fingers slowly to form the cranny. His vocal delivery should be flat and reverent, undermining the absurdity. Traditionally, Snout exits with a simple bow after his wall lines.

Where they appear

Play Tom Snout

Take the part and Yorick reads every other role aloud, following you line by line as you speak.

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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.