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Plays › The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet › Nurse to Juliet

Nurse to Juliet

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet · 91 speeches across 11 scenes

Juliet's bawdy, loving confidante and nurse since birth. Comic relief and crucial messenger.

Who they are

The Nurse is Juliet's primary maternal figure and closest confidante, having raised her from infancy. She facilitates the secret romance between Romeo and Juliet, acting as go-between for their messages and marriage. Her arc shifts from warm supporter of the lovers to pragmatic advisor when she urges Juliet to marry Paris after Tybalt's death, creating a devastating break. Her vulgar humor and earthiness contrast sharply with the idealized love of Romeo and Juliet, while her deep affection for Juliet makes her later betrayal all the more painful.

Playing them

Play the Nurse as physically warm and tactile—touch Juliet constantly, laugh loudly, and move with unrefined energy. Use a lower-class accent or speech pattern to contrast with the Capulets. Emotional range is vast: bawdy comedy in early scenes, breathless urgency in messenger sequences, then raw grief and confusion in Act 3. The key is to never play the betrayal—she genuinely believes she's helping Juliet. Speak her rambling stories with genuine relish, letting the humor come from character rather than joke-telling.

Appearance

Traditionally costumed in an older, plainer style than Lady Capulet, often with an apron or keyring suggesting domestic authority. Should look physically comfortable and matronly, never elegant.

Worth knowing

The Nurse is a stock character type from Italian commedia dell'arte known as the 'balia' or wet nurse. Shakespeare amplifies her role beyond the source material (Arthur Brooke's poem) by giving her 90 speeches and a complex emotional arc.

Where they appear

Play Nurse to Juliet

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

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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.