cicada

Surrounded on all sides by a continuous oppressive chorus of cicadas and the mountain ranges making up the Altar Valley, you quickly lose any sense of direction.

Hell, even Chuck Schumer, who rarely has the energy to do more than babble incoherently while sounding like a cicada, was semi-energetic on stage.

Then there was the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a winner for “Appropriate,” rocking a cicada brooch tie, a nod to one of the production’s creepy-crawly motifs.

“Most trees and shrubs will bounce back from cicada damage just fine,” he said.

When Cortni Borgerson thinks about the trillion or so periodical cicadas emerging from underground, she sees more than clumsily flying insects flitting from tree to tree in search of a mate.