The Comedy of Errors

The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is, along with The Tempest, one of only two Shakespearean plays to observe the Aristotelian principle of unity of time—that is, that the events of a play should occur over 24 hours.

It has been adapted for opera, stage, screen and musical theatre numerous times worldwide. In the centuries following its premiere, the play's title has entered the popular English lexicon as an idiom for "an event or series of events made ridiculous by the number of errors that were made throughout".

Summary
Egeon, about to be executed for unlawfully entering Ephesus, tells the sad tale of his search for his twin sons and wife. The Duke agrees to spare him if his family is found. Meanwhile, his twin sons, both of whom are named Antipholus, and their servants, both of whom are named Dromio, are actually in Ephesus, each unaware that he even has a twin. After a series of hilarious events involving mistaken identity almost ending in catastrophe, the twins are reunited with their mother and father, and realise their relation to each other.

In Upstart Crow
Will responds to the negative reaction to the play by deciding to use it as the basis of the first ever musical.