A Waterbury native is providing the notes and chords that give a musical boost to one of Shakespeare’s best known comedies, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Composer Lydia Arachne, a Waterbury native.
CONTRIBUTED
Lydia Arachne, who now lives in Oxford, has helped Lara Morton, director of FUSE Theatre of Connecticut, turn some of the Shakespearean text into song. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Rewired Musical,” which features a cast of youth and adult actors, will be available virtually from May 21-June 4.
Press materials say the Madison-based company’s production is set in “the scariest place imaginable: the summer of 2020. A global pandemic has altered the way humans interact and social distancing forces young lovers to maintain their connection via high-tech devices… This reboot jumps the setting over 400 years and reminds us how the digital world can simultaneously pull us apart and bring us together.”
Monitoring bathrooms for social distancing and sanitizing around the clock are not typical tasks for a spotlight operator. Though for Brooke Friedman, a University of Georgia alum and a spotlight operator at Medieval Times, these tasks are a part of her job due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
âI will clean an hour before a show starts, then Iâll stay in front of the bathrooms and monitor how many guests are allowed in at one time, just to keep up with COVID safety precautions,â Friedman said. âAfter that, Iâll go up to my spotlight tower, do all of the technical theater stuff and, then after the show, I monitor the bathrooms again and clean everything again.â