Burning Opera

For many years now, I have been working on a rock opera about Burning Man called "How To Survive the Apocalypse". I wrote the words and collaborated on the story with Christopher Fulling, an accomplished director, and Mark Nichols, who composed the music. Imagine a cross between Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Rocky Horror Picture Show and you’ll have an inkling of what we are trying to accomplish. We don’t want to make an advertisement for the event; we want to use the Burning Man experience as a way to talk about the urgent issues of the day, like community, transformation, and furry thongs.

Last January we performed a sold-out workshop version of the show at Stage Werx in San Francisco, and then later that October we staged a far more ambitious version at Teatro Zinzanni, again in SF. It was a great success, with sold-out crowds, tremendous word of mouth, and much fun had by all, jaded old-timers and newbies alike. Then the project hit the wall that greets so many worthy endeavors—including Reality Sandwich-- the unforgiving wall of Operating Funds. We have big dreams for the opera, including a full Roadshow version that would tour the country with a troupe of art-cars, performers, machine artists and DIY activists. But even mounting conventional musical theater is expensive.

Then it dawned on us: why not release a studio version of the music? What better route into the earholes of America? And we felt like there was enough community enthusiasm for the show that we could raise the money ourselves. So it made perfect sense to launch a campaign on Kickstarter, a popular micro-funding outfit. We have already done most of the professional studio recording, so the $7777 we are aiming for will allow us to edit the music, pay the studio, produce the package (including the full libretto), print the CDs, and promote the thang. Individuals can contribute as little as $30 and get a copy of the CD (or possibly vinyl). And no one pays anything unless the project gets completely funded. Please check out? our Kickstarter page at http://bit.ly/aIItq8

If you did not have the pleasure of seeing How to Survive the Apocalypse (or want to catch some flashbacks), we have posted some snippets of our Teatro Zinzanni run on youtube:

The "sizzle" reel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v43ZNsT2ihM

Lawyers read the Burning Man ticket: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W56D9CMUbgk

"Poison Path" (the shamanic medicine song) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvYufyjW62k

"Gypsy Dogs" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pabdCM6cIX4

“Beautiful Freaks” & “Burn It Up”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g21zhls3dlk

Stay tuned for more!