In 2013, Bottum moved to New York City and produced an opera called "Sasquatch: The Opera". He wrote the music and libretto for the piece about the elusive beast of the forest, describing it as a dark and gothic fairy tale about a backwoods family and the relationship between a caged woman and Sasquatch. The opera premiered in Brooklyn in 2015 and went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in the summer of 2016 for a month of shows. Bottum also wrote a short form opera called "The Ride" about the AIDS LifeCycle Ride, a charity bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a ride Bottum participated in twice. The piece was staged with two stationary bicycles onstage.