The Bugs at Waterfire

No sooner had our Bugs arrived at Steeple Street, they
were attacked by the BIG NAZ0 Providence River Trolls, who started
singing "There ain’t no bugs on me.” I feared it would get
nasty. Instead, they all started dancing together, a scene I’ll never
forget.

We had ambitious plans to have our Bugs present two
segments of the Bug Opera but a snafu got in our way. When the Narragansett
technical crew tried to play our CD, it sounded like the CD was
skipping. Thereupon I walked to my home, to try downloading the excerpt
from the Bug Opera website. That didn’t work. Hoping that the
disc might not skip in another CD player, I grabbed my own
small portable one. It turned out that the technicians had three
Discmans connected to their stereo system, but it failed to play the CD
regardless. Another ten minutes or so passed as they were asking somebody else
to come help. While we were waiting for help, I gently insisted that they
should try my CD player. To our great surprise, it worked fine. But
at that point a jazz band right behind us started playing. A minute later
we were told that our time was up.

Regardless, the Bugs made the most out of the
circumstances. They distributed lots of flyers from Steeple Street to the
Verrazzano monument, always attracting ample attention.

We are grateful to the Bugs Cameron,
Jamie and Will. Many thanks for their
help with passing out flyers to the boys’ friend Nora, Cameron’s parents Nancy
and Bob and our star Bug Opera volunteer Stephanie. Bob and Nancy also did a
great job helping the boys put on the complex costumes – to my huge
relief, because I felt quite helpless on that matter.

–Petros
Linardos, Bug Opera Production Manager