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Another possible reason for the production's draw for members of my age cohort was its contemporary aesthetic and themes, realized through both design and textual adaptation. The human characters wore contemporary clothing, and the fairies were outfitted in outlandish garments that conveyed an otherworldly feeling through the prism of contemporary sexuality. These were fairies that looked like they belonged in a New York City nightclub. The costumes were designed by an up and coming fashion designer who specialized in sexually provocative, yet upscale, clothing for both men and women. She had never worked on a theatrical production, and relished the opportunity to creatively design without the constraint of creating clothing meant for daily usage. A friend of mine who "makes beats " for professional hip-hop artists, and had developed a reputation in the club scene as being a kind of wunderkind D.J., composed the music for the production. He, likewise, had never worked in theatre, and was surprised by his own excitement for, and enjoyment of, working on a play " something he never envisioned himself doing. .
As with the costumes, the music he composed felt congruous with the nightclub environment, and the hip, contemporary feel of his beats struck the young adults in the audience as being antithetical to what they had come to expect from the soundtrack to a performance of a Shakespeare play. The lighting changed every night based on the whims of the lighting designer", a Limelight employee who approached the production's lighting as he would approach any other event at the nightclub. He sat at the board, madly improvising, within a basic scheme we had laid out together during tech, with an extraordinary collection of robotic lights and effects as the performance took place. There was no set, in the traditional sense, except for Titania's bower, which was designed by the actress who portrayed her.
