Trust is a major factor in theatrical performance‚ whose ensemble work depends on the reliability and good will of everyone present‚ including actors, audience, and technicians. Trust is also a condition of social life, which depends on the willingness of participants to place a portion of their well-being in the direction of other people, systems, institutions, and environments, and to act in turn on the trust invested in them. Trust is not the opposite so much as the condition of courage, which requires the calculation but also minimization of risk, as well as the mustering of an audience, real or imagined, for one's deeds. This essay explores the dynamic between trust and courage in Romeo and Juliet and King Lear , with brief commentaries on Emma Donaghue's Room, The Merchant of Venice , and Barack Obama's Farewell Address.