Since July of 2010, a group of friends and collaborators working under the name Ara'Kus Productions has periodically staged Aeterno Elementum, a heavy-metal opera their website describes like this:

In a world crippled by corruption and cruelty, a priest will seek to purge the world of evil and restore purity, causing the rise of four immortal generals. Once men but now twisted and corrupted beyond recognition, the generals will lead an army of twisted undead thralls in a campaign that will see the world brought down.

This weekend, Ara'Kus is opening another run of Aeterno Elementum, which in some ways sounds less like a traditional theater show and more like a community event. (It's at Historic Everett Theater, if you're interested, and you can buy tickets are here.)

In honor of the sixth run of Aeterno Elementum in three years, I asked its founder Jeremiah Johnson a few questions, including how much they have to shell out for fire insurance. His answers, and a slightly longer trailer for the show, are below the jump.

What is this show about?

The story of Aeterno Elementum centers around a character we call The Priest. He is possibly the last pure soul on the face of the planet and is vexed by his inability to help bring his fellow man into the light. Through an unfortunate string of events, he is brought to his breaking point and his cries for help are heard by the Demoness, who tricks him into accepting a pact whereby she will help him purify the world. As he soon finds out, the only way to purify the world is to cleanse it of all humankind. The story is told through flashbacks as The Priest relives the final years of man in his dreams and the Generals of the Apocalypse tell their stories of how they came to be a part of these events.

The show isn’t a traditional musical as the actors aren’t singing along with the music, but rather there is a full band on stage with them, usually in the background, telling the story through their instruments and lyrics. Though there is a decent amount of dialogue, mostly from The Priest character, a large portion of the story is told through elaborate pantomime. Woven throughout the story are also elements of spectacle such as fire dancing, aerial and combat ranging from acrobatic martial arts to fully armored knights swinging live steel. The music itself ranges from pounding symphonic power metal to eerie acapella choral pieces and operatic arias, and is accessible to even non-fans of the metal genre.

What was its origin?

I originally founded Ara’Kus in 2001 as a four-piece power metal band in Silverdale, WA. Nearly a decade and many line-up changes later, we found we had outgrown the traditional band venue scene and wanted to develop a performance where we had complete control over all elements of the show and where we could really tell a story. We’re all a bunch of geeks at heart and while we love heavy metal, we don’t necessarily fit in to the heavy metal scene in Seattle. We’re not "true," or "hardcore," we’re just a bunch of performers that want to create really cool art and tell a story that we find engaging through a medium that we enjoy. Theater seemed a pretty logical fit for us, and so in 2010 we started recruiting actors and crew to help us stage a show based on our conceptual album, Aeterno Elementum.

Amazingly, we pulled together a group of around 40 volunteers to help us put on that first show. We had no idea how to stage it, but we found a theater willing to let us give it a shot (the Historic Everett) and went all out. I still have no idea how we pulled it together and actually made it happen, but we did and it wasn’t horrible. Since then, we’ve started to figure things out, and while we’re still learning, the show in its current stage is almost unrecognizable from its original form due to the improvements we’ve made in all areas. November 2013 will be our sixth run of the show, and by far the most impressive.

How long have you been doing it and how many people tend to show up? Is your audience mostly friends and family? If not, where do they come from?

We’ve been running this show since July 2010 and have done a total of six runs, counting the one this November. I have to be honest; I think the first show audience was almost entirely friends and family of the cast and crew. We still had about 300 people, which was pretty impressive considering we had no concept of how to market something like this. Since then, we’ve picked up a lot of marketing tricks and know-how and have managed to pull in larger and larger audiences. Our last run in 2012 saw about 1,000 people over two nights. We’re hoping to at least double that this year.

As for where they come from, the only answer I can give is a whole ton of hard work on our part. Personally, I spend about 40-60 hours a week working on this show in the months leading up to it. About 75% of that time is directed towards promotions, whether it’s managing the Facebook page, setting up cross promotion, handing out flyers at events, postering, hanging out at conventions, etc. We also have quite a few other people in our group that contribute, like John Stevenson, our press writer, Randy Haines, my co-producer, Vivian Lee, our graphic artist, Ray Salamon, our website tech, and a whole slew of others that help in various ways.

Why do you keep doing it?

Because we love it. It’s a show that no one else is doing and it just keeps getting better and better. Every person involved has taken on their role and made it their own. This show is ever evolving and because of that, everyone that participates leaves their mark on it. I wrote the music and the original script, but I never could have envisioned where it would go, and I never could have gotten it there on my own.

Aside from the show itself being something that we love and are very proud of, the cast and crew is like a big family. They are what really make the experience magical for me. All the way from the first rehearsals up until closing night, they make it worth doing. There’s a very good reason we still have a majority of our original performers.

Are any of you musicians and/or actors outside of Ara'Kus?

Many of us are, yes. I’ve done some semi-professional opera and professional vocal recordings in the past, though it’s not my primary work. Randy is a classical guitarist and guitar instructor. Carrole Johnson, our Demoness and primary fire dancer is a frequent performer around Seattle in the burlesque and fire scene. David Traylor, our Air General, is a trained Shakespearean actor and accomplished stage combatant. That’s just a few. I could go on for hours, considering our cast and crew is up to around 60 people.

It seems less like a typical musical (which will run for a several weeks and not be revived every year) than a kind of community event/ritual/holiday (in the broad sense of the term).

That could be true in some senses. The big difference that I see between a typical musical and what we’re doing is that Aeterno Elementum is constantly evolving. It’s a totally original piece created by the people that stage it. I hope that it can become a true community event or holiday someday. It certainly is for most of the people involved.

We are working on creating an entirely new show, which we’re hoping to unveil within a year or two, but it’s a massive undertaking and we can’t give any firm dates just yet. This will be the first part of a trilogy that we plan to release in two year intervals. Once that happens and we have a bit of a repertoire, we may start cycling through shows a bit more.

How much fire insurance do you have to pay for all those fire dancers?

It depends on where we’re performing. In Seattle, the fire marshall requires that you purchase an annual permit, which runs around $450. This is just to be able to do the fire performance in public spaces, and doesn’t cover you against any damages. Everett, where we’re performing this November, doesn’t have the same requirement, though we go through the courtesy of informing them of all our activities and get them to sign off on a certificate saying that they’re ok with it. We have a general insurance plan on the performance troupe that covers us against all types of things, including fire, so long as we’re not stupid with it. We always have several people acting as safety technicians and multiple methods of extinguishing fires on hand. So far we haven’t had any incidents, but we’re not about to risk anything.

Other stuff of note: We’re just about to release the Aeterno Elementum album. The recording process has been an epic story on its own, but suffice to say that we’re very proud of it and hope to have plenty of physical copies at the shows in November, as well as free digital downloads from our website, www.HeavyMetalOpera.com. Tickets for the November 15th, 16th, 22nd, and 23rd shows at the Historic Everett Theatre are also available through the website, including VIP tickets, which give you prime seating and a meet and greet with the main players post-show.