Rosebud students take Shakespeare to Comic Con

By Laureen F. Guenther Times Contributor

Rosebud School of the Arts students will bring Shakespeare into 2018 in April, performing The Comedy of Errors in the setting of a Comic Con conference.
The Comedy of Errors: A Cosplay Adventure is about two sets of identical twins, born the same day. The twins of a poor woman are purchased to become slaves to the twins of wealthy parents. During a storm soon after their birth, the twins are separated. One of each pair goes with the mother, landing in Ephesus, where they grow up unaware they have brothers. The other twins grow up in Syracuse with the father, who tells them they each have a twin brother.
Dromio of Ephesus is slave to Antipholus of Ephesus, and Dromio of Syracuse is slave to Antipholus of Syracuse.
The twins of Syracuse, followed by the father, set off to search for their twin brothers. They end up in Ephesus, where the people hate Syracusans. In fact, the father is imprisoned and sentenced to death for simply entering the city. So the Syracuse twins pretend they’re from Ephesus.
“They’re in the same town as their twins, without knowing it,” said Rebbekah Ogden, Rosebud School of the Arts (RSA) student who’s performing Dromio of Ephesus. “Because of that, all of this confusion happens with meeting the wife and then meeting each other’s servants and getting the story all confused and mixed up.”
Under direction of instructor Nathan Schmidt, the cast has given The Comedy of Errors a modern twist: setting the play in a Comic Con conference, where guests dress as comic, game and movie characters. Ogden and her twin Dromio (Maggie MacKenzie) are in Mario costumes. The Antipholus twins (Mikayla Whitehouse, Emily Anne Salkeld) are dressed as Indiana Jones. The audience will recognize other characters too, Ogden said, and will enjoy lots of familiar theme music.
“It’s going to be ridiculous. It’s not going to be your normal Shakespeare play,” Ogden said. “It’s definitely going to be entertaining.”
As Dromio of Ephesus, slave to the wealthy – and increasingly confused – Antipholus of Ephesus, Ogden said she gets beat up a lot. But, somehow, she’s enjoying that.
“What I’m enjoying about my role the most is being able to find that line of the seriousness of my character and at the same time, the silliness of it,” she said. “It’s quite a tragic role to be playing this Dromio, because he’s constantly getting beat up, and he’s just trying to do a good job.”
“I’m playing quite a hilarious role that’s tragic at the same time. … I like the challenge of figuring out exactly how to balance that.”
She hopes we’ll laugh a lot and also take away something deeper.
“How often do I take for granted that I have a family, that I have a place to belong?” she said. “That’s what I hope people take. It’s just treasuring the belonging that they have.”
The Comedy of Errors: A Cosplay Adventure runs April 12 to 28, Thursdays to Saturdays at 4:30 p.m., on Rosebud’s BMO Studio Stage. Get tickets at 1-800-267-7553 or rosebudschoolofthearts.com.