I have worked on three different productions of Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors”.  The first was in 2002.  Director Joel Jahnke drove the plot forward by regularly reminding the audience that Aegeon, a character who sets the plot in motion in the first scene, is due to be executed at the end of the play.  The music for that production emphasized that countdown with driving, somewhat menacing music and a “tick tock” percussion track.

In 2006 I worked on another production of the play with a different director.  I wanted to see if I could somehow reuse the theme from the first production while transforming it to fit a new approach.  This second version, directed by William Brown, was modeled on the Crosby and Hope road pictures in which the characters find themselves as fish out of water in exotic locales.  In thinking about Bing Crosby, I had an idea for a swing arrangement.  It didn’t seem right for that production, but it did inspire Brown to lean into the 40’s for his next production of this play, which we did at American Players Theatre using a score based in 40’s big band with a few stylistic detours.

A fragment of the theme from the 2002 production is heard between 0:53 – 1:09.