How To Survive The Apocalypse: A Burning Opera at Teatro ZinZanni

photo by Michael Rauner

How to Survive the Apocalypse, a Burning Man-inspired rock opera opens Monday, October 5th and runs through October 20th at Teatro ZinZanni in San Francisco.

There will be performances for three weekends only (the last weekend was just added due to high demand). Ticket details are on the Teatro ZinZanni website.

Delivering the outrageous and transformative culture of Burning Man to wider audiences, “How to Survive the Apocalypse” is a freak fable that combines rock opera, vaudeville, and a Dionysian revival show as it follows three people, each with their own baggage of fears and expectations, through their first experience of the erotic, psychological, and apocalyptic minefield of this temporary city in the desert. A kind of “Hair” for the new millennium, the show explores the conflicts and paradoxes of the Burning Man event, while inviting the audience to tap into the festival’s spirit of collaborative culture-making at a time of immense world changes.

The official Burning Man blog has a writeup about the show with lots of great photos. The fantastic cast photos shown here are by photographer Michael Rauner and there are many more on his site.

photo by Michael Rauner

Back in January, I wrote about the debut run of this show at Stage Werx Theater in San Francisco. It was a very short, very sold out run in a 49-seat theater, with the workshop feel of a collaborative piece that was evolving in real time.

People involved in those initial shows, in both the cast and audience, had diverse levels of Burning Man experience: from some of the earliest participants to current BM staff; from those who have just discovered the event to many who stopped attending long ago. The take on Burning Man and its history is as varied as that mix of viewpoints would suggest.

Candy ravers mingle with art freaks, manic minigolf, bull-horned rabbits, and the abstract caricatures Moustachio and The Stetson. Happily the event and its history is not romanticized, but neither are the profound aspects of experiencing Burning Man (especially for the first time) under stated or estimated.

Clearly a fun, freaky art experiment, at its best the show has a “vibe” to it that resonates with all in attendance; an infrequent but not quite rare occurrence like the best moments at parties, events, or temporary desert municipalities. It is something from which you can almost literally catch a buzz, and maybe a flashback or two.

photo by Michael Rauner

The text was written by Erik Davis (star of the penultimate instance of Laughing Squid’s Tentacle Sessions series). Erik is a journalist and culture critic, and a long-time Burning Man attendee who covered Burning Man for Wired more than a decade ago. His most recent book is The Visionary State about “California’s spiritual landscape” is a good example of his style: thinking deeply about the weird and freaky.

The music is composed by Mark Nichols, originally from the Seattle area, who first attended Burning Man more recently, which is where the idea for this rock opera began to evolve from a chance meeting at the porta-pottys one night.

photo by Michael Rauner

After its short successful run in January, the show went off the grid, preparing for a bigger, more polished return. The ultimate plan includes a tour at some point after this second San Francisco run.

The ensuing months have included lots of work on the show, the inevitable fund-raising of an independent production, and expansion of the cast and crew and the overall scale of the opera.

The new set was designed by Shannon O’Hare, one of the mad anachronistic geniuses behind “Neverwas Haul”, the steam-powered mobile Victorian house which has travelled to Burning Man the last few years.

photo by Michael Rauner

The cast now includes Phat Mandee (another Tentacle Session star) who has come all the way from Pittsburgh, PA for extended rehearsals prior to the opening. See her blog post about the show and her history with Burning Man (plus rehearsal pix).

The list of incredible collaborators goes on. You can see them all here. They include Burning Man founder Michael Mikel and long-time BM staffers Harley DuBois and Andie Grace.