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Audiences at Brown University's production of the Jean-Paul Sartre play The Flies last month were greatly outnumbered in the auditorium by 30,000 fruit flies that were bred by a science student specifically for the play.

The day before the performance, the cast and crew released most of the flies into the theater, which was surrounded by netting. They continued freeing the flies over the next few days so their numbers would remain approximately constant throughout the performances, Naylor said.

Several methods were used to keep the flies circulating around the audience, Rutherford said. More than a hundred food traps were distributed mostly in low places around the theater. One of the actresses in the play brought a bowl of rotting fruit onstage with her. Even the blood -- made of chocolate syrup -- was designed to lure the flies, he said.