I had been feeling bad that i was having such a hard time memorizing my lines for the show. I was curious if my burden was truly larger than my fellow cast mates. I resorted to line counting.
When i first started acting, i judged the importance of my part by the number of lines i had. For my first few parts, i could count the number on my hands. It's a very petty thing to do and i'm ashamed to admit it. Nevertheless i was interested in finding out if i had the most lines in this show. Rather than getting out a paper and pen, i sought a more technical solution. Turns out you can get all of Shakespeare's plays in an XML format. I wrote an XSL to count the lines for me and posted the results in my lab.
The results are as follows: I do, in fact, have the most lines at 269, followed by Adriana ringing in at 264, and Dromio of Ephesus shows with 246. (These are lines as in the ten lines that may make up a speech one character gives.) So there!
Posted by Matthew at October 6, 2004 11:51 PM