Santa Fe has seen its share of gloomy operas over the years — including Elektra , Tosca , Wozzeck , Salome , and Lulu , to name just a few — but now a musical fable with actual Gloomies onstage is looming on the horizon. Perhaps you’ve heard that 2024 is the 100th anniversary of Zozobra, the giant marionette whose annual incineration is the largest civic event on Santa Fe’s public calendar. As part of the centennial celebration, the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe and the Lensic Performing Arts Center have joined forces to commission and produce Zozobra: The Revenge , which has music by composer Joe Illick and a text by novelist Douglas Preston, based on the original Zozobra story by its creator, Will Shuster.
Their one-hour stage work asks the Godzilla-like musical question, “What would happen if Zozobra didn’t succumb to the flames but instead escaped from the pole and started terrorizing the entire town of Santa Fe?” In keeping with the family focus of the long-running event, children play a major role in Zozobra: The Revenge , which its creators hope will be scary in that just-right proportion kids love. Preston’s first draft of the text scared Illick too, but in a way he hadn’t intended. It started with two of the major characters — Elena, a Hispanic girl of around age 12, and Will, an Anglo boy of around 10 — who were skateboarding at the park downtown.
“I did a bunch of research because I don’t know anything about skateboarding,” Preston said, “b.