CoE is a costume tournament. Yes--to inject a little silliness into the tournament, we are asking that everyone come to PLAY in costume. It is not mandatory, but I know you can all manage something. What sort of costume? Well, the name "A Comedy of Errors" is from the Shakespeare play, which is the story of two sets of twins and their somewhat comedic adventures. But costume ideas for a simple Shakespeare theme would be somewhat limiting. Not everyone can show up in tights and tutus (though you are welcome to!). We can expand the theme along several other broad ideas, found in the play or otherwise:

Twins, Shipwreck, Slaves, Ancient Greece, Comedy duos (Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, Laverne and Shirley, Beavis and Butthead?), ANYTHING to do with comedy (Jugglers? Clowns? Sit-coms . . . whatever else.), ANYTHING to do with errors (come dressed as Microsoft Windows '95?).

The team with the best costumes will win a fabulous, though nearly valueless, prize.

SOTG (silliness of the game) and Cheers: I assume that every team coming to this tournament would merit a perfect 5 out of 5 from every team for every game using 'traditional' SOTG scoring. Our idea is not to use a traditional SOTG rating system, nor to have traditional cheers.

Instead of the traditional cheer, we would like you to prepare something in advance to entertain the other team after the game. The theme of the cheer is to make the other team laugh. The more laughs you get, the better your SOTG score. You *could* sing a song (if it's funny). You could also do a short skit, or some sort of comedy routine. You could tell jokes. You could throw pies at each other. Anything that'll make the other team laugh. (Not everyone on your team needs to be involved, just the funny people.)

If your cheer is truly funny, we may even give you the spotlight at the party to perform for everyone!

The Play (a summary):

The setting is Ephesus (A Greek city in what is now Turkey). The time period is not given, but it would have to be pre-Roman--so somewhere between 200-450 BC. It is full of anachronisms as are all of his plays.

Twenty five years or so before the play opens, a young merchant, his wife, their identical twin sons and the identical twin slaves he has bought for those sons are moving to Syracuse (it's in Sicily). There is a shipwreck; they are separated. The father eventually reaches Syracuse with one son and his slave. He has no idea where his wife and other child are, or whether they survive. When the son is about eighteen the father decides to go in search of his lost family. He searches for seven years unsuccessfully, then he reaches Ephesus where it turns out Syracusans (?) are persona non grata --he is faced with a fine or death and he doesn't have the money to pay the fine. The Duke of Ephesus gives him one day to find the money.

That same day his son (and slave) arrives in Ephesus‹and because he knows about the fine he lies about his city of origin. The play takes place over this one day.

Of course, the brother lives in Ephesus and, presumably because of some confusion during the shipwreck, they have the same name, Antipholus. Their slaves have the same name as well, Dromio. Pretty much the entire play is made up of a series of cases of mistaken identity. Everyone, including the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, confuses the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios. This finally leads to one pair being imprisoned and the other to seek sanctuary in an abbey (yes I know the era is pre-Christian--please see the note about anachronisms). It turns out the abbess is the long lost mother (she was separated from Antipholus of Ephesus shortly after the shipwreck), and Antipholus of Ephesus was a ward of the Duke of Ephesus and thus has some pull. The family is reunited and all, of course, ends happily.