Using Music in Performing Roman Comedy

In the original performances of Roman comedy, actors sang to the accompaniment of the two-pipedtibia. Although complete reconstruction of this practice on the modern stage is impractical, participants in the 2012 NEH Summer Institute on Roman Comedy in Performance demonstrated several ways of incorporating music into modern performances, including hip hop-style performance; spoken dialogue with incidental music;a cappellasinging to rhythms suggested by Plautus' and Terence's meters; accompanied singing of stichic meters to a repeated melody; and accompanied singing of a polymetric scene. Each of these approaches can be reproduced in the classroom to great pedagogical benefit.