Former drama student Oliver Marks has been in prison for 10 years, serving a sentence for the murder of his classmate Richard Stirling, to which he confessed. He is visited every fortnight by Joseph Colborne, the head of police, who believes there is more to Oliver’s story than he has revealed. On this particular visit, Colborne tells Oliver he is retiring from the police force to join a private security firm. Since that means Colborne cannot use Oliver’s testimony, Oliver agrees to tell Colborne his story, but only after he is released from prison.

Oliver begins his story from September 1997, his fourth and final year at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, an elite theatre school in Broadwater, Illinois. Oliver studied acting at Dellecher, the curriculum comprising exclusively of plays by Shakespeare. Oliver’s final year acting class consists of only seven students; the rest having failed over the years. The seven friends are a tight-knit group, each occupying specific roles in the friend circle and in the casting choices for plays. Physically massive Richard always plays kings and generals, beautiful Meredith Dardenne, “the femme fatale” (15), roguish-looking Alexander Vass, the villain, handsome