Given the important function of music in Twelfth Night, it seems fitting for Sheldon Epps’ 1996 musical riff to make a virtue of it by infusing Shakespeare’s comedy of unrequited love and disguise with the sounds of Duke Ellington’s jazz and swing.
The title itself, after all, refers to the often-quoted words by the lovesick Duke Orsino: “If music be the food of love, play on”. They are adapted for the final medley in this musical, set in 1940s Harlem, inside the Cotton Club.
