Shakespeare's Monologues — MCP server

A small, read-only Model Context Protocol server that lets MCP-capable AI clients search and fetch Shakespeare monologue metadata from shakespeare-monologues.org.

It's a thin, stateless wrapper over the site's public JSON index (/api/monologues.json) — no database, no secrets. Every result carries the monologue's permalink url (where the full text, scene context, and modern-English paraphrase live) and an attribution note.

Tools

The paraphrase and summaries are AI-generated (Claude) and only partially cached so far, so those tools return null where content hasn't been generated yet.

Related MCP server: Sefaria MCP Server

Run locally

Two transports, same tools. server.ts builds the tool surface and knows nothing about how it's reached; index.ts serves it over HTTP and stdio.ts over stdio.

Over stdio, the way an MCP client spawns a local server:

npx shakespeare-monologues-mcp

Over HTTP, which is how the hosted instance runs:

npm install
npm run build
npm start          # listens on :3000, POST /mcp   (set PORT to change)

Health check: GET /health → {"ok":true}.

Neither mode needs credentials — the server reads the site's public JSON index. Set MONOLOGUES_API_URL to point it elsewhere, and POSTHOG_PROJECT_API_KEY="" to disable analytics.

Connecting a client

Remote MCP means users add a URL, no install. In a client that supports remote / custom MCP servers (Claude Desktop connectors, etc.), add:

https://mcp.shakespeare-monologues.org/mcp

Or run it yourself over stdio, with no hosted dependency:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shakespeare-monologues": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "shakespeare-monologues-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

For clients configured with a JSON config file, use the streamable-HTTP transport:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shakespeare-monologues": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://mcp.shakespeare-monologues.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

For a client that only speaks stdio, bridge to the remote server with mcp-remote:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shakespeare-monologues": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.shakespeare-monologues.org/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Note on "autonomous" use: there's no mechanism today for an arbitrary agent to discover and use this with zero user action — a client/platform still has to connect it. For truly zero-setup access, agents can hit the plain JSON API (/api/monologues.json) and /llms.txt directly.

License

• Code: MIT.

• Data served through it: © shakespeare-monologues.org, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — please keep the attribution that each tool response includes.