Cthulhu: The Musical! Brings Pop Songs and Puppetry to Meow Wolf

"You're going to find the answer strange, but this is the true story of how Cthulhu: The Musical! came to be," says Josh Gross, artistic director of Puppeteers for Fears and author of the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired puppet musical.

When PFF began in 2015, the plan was to create a couple of original shows each year. To generate ideas, Gross would jokingly add the suffix "the musical" to random words and say them aloud to see how people reacted.

"My girlfriend and I were in a public park, and I just said, 'Cthulhu: The Musical!,' and three people turned to me and asked when they could see it," Gross recalls. "I said, 'Oh, here in the fall.' My girlfriend then said, 'Now you have to go write it!' We wrote it quickly because, I guess you can say, it tested well in focus groups. Everything is marketing, so if the title alone makes people want to see it, you're golden."

Thus began the journey of transforming H.P. Lovecraft's eldritch horror into a hilariously dark musical comedy, culminating in an ongoing tour across the country, including an upcoming performance at Denver's Meow Wolf on July 18.  Adapted from Lovecraft's 1929 short story "The Call of Cthulhu," the musical tells the story of Cthulhu, a giant, octopus-faced god that hibernates beneath the ocean, communicating with humans through their dreams and gradually driving them insane.

Using the original story as inspiration made it a difficult script to write, because "people have very strong opinions on it, so that’s sort of a minefield," Gross says.
The Lovecraft story also did not lend itself well to musicalization. "In fact, it was almost a challenge to adapt it into a musical comedy," Gross adds. "What's interesting about H.P. Lovecraft is that — setting aside his many flaws as a person — as a writer, he was a master of creating tone and imagery, but he was terrible at plot. Writing the story was a real challenge, because it is not a traditional story with a protagonist, antagonist, conflict and a journey they must take."

Gross went through several drafts, attempting to shoehorn a plot into some versions. At an early reading, one of the actors asked Gross why this needed to be a puppet show, "and that was a critical question, because at the time, it didn’t have to be," Gross recalls. "So, we went back and added this character called Bert, who's a sort of Lovecraftian demon, and he's the narrator who kind of guides you through the whole show." Introducing Bert as a "sherpa who guides you through the whole plot" not only made the story more dynamic, but also provided more monsters, puppets and elements to work with.
Cthulhu: The Musical! features a host of catchy songs, including "Unhappy Village," "Mountains of Madness," "Not Evil, Just Misunderstood," "Island of Sadness" and "Happy Ending in Quotes." Gross's songwriting was influenced by his desire for the songs to stand on their own as enjoyable pieces of music while also serving the story. "I grew up not really liking musicals because there wasn't context for when the songs were happening," he says. "I also wanted the songs to be good songs rather than just sing-talking. I grew up playing in bands, so I was trying to write pop songs with strong pop hooks, which require a strong title, similar to a thesis statement that describes what the song is about. So, if it's a fun song but adds nothing to the story, it doesn't work for our musical."

The show's combination of humor, horror and, of course, puppets made it a hit on the West Coast after it opened in 2017. "One joke that really personifies the overall sort of ethos for the entire art form comes when these two characters are on a boat, and one of the puppets says they are feeling sick," Gross says. "The other puppet says, 'Oh, you haven't gotten your sea legs yet, have you?'" Then they just look down. It's a great moment because it takes the audience a second to understand, but once they do, they say, 'Oh, my God, that's hilarious!' I really enjoy the fun meta moments in which the characters acknowledge that this is a show."
Director Katy Curtis, who joined PFF in 2018, has been a driving force behind the musical's current tour. She was in the audience of the original production of Cthulhu: The Musical!; inspired, she joined as a performer after being encouraged by her friend, Alyssa Marie Mathews, a puppeteer who has worked with the company since 2015.

Curtis began directing PFF shows a few years ago, including the 2023 West Coast touring production of Cthulhu: The Musical! "My vision for the musical was to faithfully re-create the show that they did seven years ago," Curtis says. "I just tried to focus on the main themes of 'The Call of Cthulhu,' which are about the community's need to understand its own knowledge limitations. The original story is about how knowledge can be destructive at times and how knowledge is not always power, so I leaned into that a little bit, as well as old detective shows."

The rest of the creative team behind Cthulhu: The Musical! includes cast members Hunter Prutch, Alex Giorgi, Owen Webb and Forest Gilpin as well as a live rock band and production designer Aubry Hollingshead, who created the show's multimedia backdrops. Mathews is reprising her role as Francine Thurston, femme fatale, for the fifth time since the show's inception.
"I still love playing her," Mathews says, adding that it's hard work to make the puppetry look seamless. The performer is completely hidden behind a twelve-foot-wide puppet box with a built-in screen designed by Hollingshead. The puppets are primarily hand-and-rod with moving mouths, also known as Muppet style, and are operated by actors hidden beneath the puppet house.

"It’s a challenge for all of us puppeteers behind the puppet house," Mathews says. "It is not a huge space, and the way we puppet is with our arms above our heads and our heads kind of tucked under so that you know the audience is seeing a puppet, so you can't stand up at all. As much choreography as you see the puppets do, we're probably doing twice the amount of work backstage crawling over each other and getting set up for the next part. It's just a whole other layer of blocking and choreography; you kind of have to be very limber and learn how to be very compact."

The improvisational aspect of the production contributes significantly to its appeal. "The cast is all very talented improv performers, and sometimes they will just try to throw each other off their game for fun, so it changes a little bit every night," Gross says. "It's kind of like jazz; we know how it's supposed to go, but we ride the wave to get to the end."

PFF's 2024 tour is its largest to date. Gross booked all the previous tours, but decided to use a booking agent this time because "I needed to take one thing off my plate." Since the tour is going from the East Coast to the West Coast, Gross says Denver is the "perfect spot since it’s in the center of the country."

"I used to live in Boulder for a little while and loved Colorado, but moved for family reasons," Gross says. "I haven't been to The Perplexiplex before, but Meow Wolf is something we look up to in creative, immersive environments. Our booking agent is so East Coast and he didn't really know what Meow Wolf was. He sent us a link and asked, ‘Oh, does this work?’ We saw it was a Meow Wolf, and we were like, ‘Fuck, yeah, what do you mean?’ Of course, we want to play Meow Wolf."

For Curtis and the rest of the team, the Denver performance is more than just a stop on the tour: It represents how far they have come.

"We've evolved so much from where we started, and performing at such a renowned venue is a testament to our hard work and creativity," Curtis says. "We've come such a long way from where we started, but we're ready for this tour. I think we're going to kick some ass. I'm also really excited to see what comes after this tour, so be on the look out for even bigger things from us in the future."

Cthulhu: The Musical!, Thursday, July 18, Meow Wolf, 1338 First Street. Learn more at puppeteersforfears.com.