The Comedy of Errors

I have always believed you can do whatever you would like with Shakespeare as a director, so long as there is proper justification for it in the text. Shakespeare’s original script for The Comedy of Errors is set in the kingdoms of “Ephesus” and “Syracuse” respectively. As I teach at Syracuse High School, setting the production in modern day at Syracuse High School seemed too good an opportunity to miss. The kingdom of Ephesus became “Davisus” as I teach in Davis school district.

This play is all about identity and finding oneself, and figuring out one’s place in the world is a daily occurrence in high school. It was so fun for the students to play around with the stereotypes that are common in high school and examine why we wear the masks we do or assign those to others. As they did so, we worked together to find modern references we could incorporate into our production, while still staying true to Shakespeare's original text.