(left to right) Nicole Neifert as Adriana, Devon Mushalko as Antipholus of Syracuse and Jenny Morrison as Dromio of Syracuse in rehearsals for Lord Denney’s Players’ production of “The Comedy of Errors.” Credit: Courtesy of Elizabeth Falter
With campus still in winter’s clutches, Lord Denney’s Players aims to bring something more lighthearted to the community with Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors.”
“The Comedy of Errors” follows two sets of twins separated at birth who, unknowingly, find themselves in the same place at the same time, Elizabeth Falter, the play’s director and digital media specialist in the English department, said. The slapstick show about mistaken identity will run during the first two weekends of March at Sullivant Hall and Mikey’s Late Night Slice.
Lord Denney’s Players was born in 2014 after the Department of English received a grant to put on productions of Shakespeare’s plays, Sarah Neville, the group’s creative director and an assistant professor in the English department, said. Lord Denney’s Players is an on-campus theater group that offers students a chance to immerse themselves in early English texts while also learning the ins and outs of theater, Neville said.
“We are a bunch of amateurs who are doing some fun work that is informed by scholarship,” Neville said. “Only a handful of folks who are working on the show have done theater before.”
Approximately 12-14 majors are represented in the group this year, but Neville said membership can extend to recent alumni along with Ohio State faculty and staff. Members often work together to stage performances of Shakespeare’s “bad quartos,” which Neville said are early versions of Shakespeare’s plays, typically deemed sketchy in academia because of their rough and unedited nature.
“There is an audience for the weird or unusual circumstances in which Shakespeare’s plays first saw print,” Neville said. “People are interested in this kind of stuff.”
This year, the group chose “The Comedy of Errors” as its spring production because it is funny and farcical, Elizabeth Falter, the play’s director and digital media specialist in the English department, said.
“It’s joyous and fun,” she said. “I laugh out loud at every rehearsal.”
Suspension of disbelief is integral to “The Comedy of Errors” because unrelated performers must convince the audience they are physically identical, Falter said. Therefore, she said the show selection is practical considering the pandemic-related safety measures in place.
“Having masks makes it much easier to buy into the fact that these people keep getting mistaken for each other,” Falter said. “The show must go on, but not if you’re unwell.”
Liz Hardy, a third-year in English and speech and hearing science, said she is excited to take on her role as Luciana. Hardy said this is her second show with the group — her first being the Zoom production of “Looking for Hamlet” in December 2020.
“Luciana is almost prissy and knows what she wants,” Hardy said. “So when everything kind of blows up, she’s thrown off and doesn’t know what to do.”
Although Shakespeare can be linguistically daunting, Hardy said the cast is determined and eager to transfer “The Comedy of Errors” from page to stage.
“The dialogue has been used for hundreds of years, but you can still play with the language and make it your own,” Hardy said. “Everyone is incredible, and I feel really supported.”
E.P. DeCarlo, a doctoral fellow in the interdisciplinary folklore program and stage manager for Lord Denney’s Players, said the crew has worked diligently to prepare the show for two separate locations: Mikey’s Late Night Slice, located at 268 S. 4th St., and the Barnett Center Collaboratory in 141 Sullivant Hall.
DeCarlo said the crew took inspiration from “innyard performances,” which were popular during the Elizabethan era and entailed performing in London inns as opposed to traditional theaters.
“We took detailed measurements of the Collaboratory and Mikey’s,” DeCarlo said. “It was an abstract process of imagining all the impediments we would be facing.”
Despite having limited rehearsal time inside each of the spaces, DeCarlo said he is confident in Lord Denney’s Players and the group’s ability to modernize Shakespearean drama.
“These people are volunteering to do the show, but they’re putting in the work of professionals,” he said. “Basically, they’ve come in off the streets to learn the whole world of theater.”
“The Comedy of Errors” will run Thursday through Saturday in the Barnett Center Collaboratory and March 10-11 at Mikey’s Late Night Slice, with a maximum of 40 tickets available for each show, according to the group’s website. Tickets can also be purchased through the website.
