Role Doubling:
Doubling occurs when two characters (or more) are played by the same actor. This is a theater specific mode of utilizing the performers, one that can create confusion. In Twelfth Night, we have specific markers that are going to indicate the double roles. For example, the Duke and Officer two are played by the same actor, but there will be a costume change indicating his change. This allows for multiple possibilities on stage. With actors doubling up on who they are playing, it allows them to stretch their abilities and to learn more about the ways in which the plays were originally performed. Many productions in the Early Modern era used doubling in casting.

Gender Swapping:
Gender swapping is a case where a character of one gender is played by an actor of different gender. During Shakespeare’s life all of his plays and the plays by others were performed by men and boys. Boys played the female roles and as they got older they began to perform male roles if they decided to remain with the theatre company. This is utilized, but reversed, in Twelfth Night with Sebastian, a male role performed by a woman who is playing a man. Unlike the actress playing Viola, who also plays as Cesario, this male disguise that is part of the plot. This can create confusion as the genders are already being played with on stage by Viola’s disguise. Imagine how it used to be in Shakespeare’s day! What makes gender swapping possible in a production is the utilization of the willing suspension of disbelief. By using this concept, the audience puts aside their knowledge that everything on the stage not real. Instead they believe the story, what they are seeing and the reliability of what is happening on stage as ‘real’. This means that during the performance, Sebastian is believed to be male. The ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ is an important and defining component of theatre making and practice.