{"id":2800,"date":"2012-04-05T12:50:23","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T17:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=2800"},"modified":"2012-04-05T12:50:23","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T17:50:23","slug":"cbc-host-bill-richardons-craigslist-cantata-coming-to-factory-theatre-next-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/04\/05\/cbc-host-bill-richardons-craigslist-cantata-coming-to-factory-theatre-next-february\/","title":{"rendered":"CBC host Bill Richardon’s Craigslist Cantata coming to Factory Theatre next February"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bree Greig, from left, Veda Hille, J. Cameron Barnett, Selina Martin, Barry Mirochnick, and Dmitry Chepovetsky in the Vancouver Arts Club presentation of Do You Want What I Got? A Craigslist Cantata<\/em> in January (David Cooper photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For next season, Toronto’s Factory Theatre has picked up the most buzzed-about show from the start of the new year in Vancouver: Do You Want What I Got? A Craigslist Cantata<\/em>, written by CBC Radio 2 host Bill Richardson and composer Veda Hille.<\/p>\n

Here is what Colin Thomas wrote in his review for the Georgia Straight<\/em><\/a>, in January:<\/p>\n

The tone of Cantata<\/em> is approximately two parts absurd hilarity and one part potent loneliness. CBC Radio host Bill Richardson, who wrote the show with songwriter Veda Hille, combed Craigslist for oddities, and he\u2019s come up with some doozies: \u201cNeed Sarah Palin look-alike for adult film\u201d; \u201cChildren\u2019s guillotine\u2026 Only been used once.\u201d Without losing the characters\u2019 eccentricity, Richardson and Hille also reveal the posters\u2019 humanity. Take the woman trying to give away her collection of cat hats, for instance. They belonged to her pet, Snowman, who is now deceased. As the poster sings, in absolute earnestness, about how some of the hats are cute and some are more formal, it\u2019s impossible not to laugh\u2014especially when Snowman\u2019s ghost starts to sing back. But Craigslist Cantata<\/em> isn\u2019t about ridicule. The woman is nutty, but she\u2019s also grieving.<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s lonely\u2014like a lot of us. That\u2019s the genius of this piece: it recognizes that in a culture in which we\u2019re trained to believe that we\u2019re primarily consumers rather than citizens or members of a community, when we reach out for connection, many of us do so in the language of commerce.<\/p>\n

Hille is an expert at finding the poetry and musicality in mundane speech. Sometimes that exploration is bare-bones: she speaks one passage while accompanying herself on piano, accentuating the rhythms and melody of her words. And sometimes Hille expands the musicality of speech into full, fantastic numbers, including \u201cHi, My Lady\u201d, in which performer Dmitry Chepovetsky sings an intoxicatingly rhythmic song about being infatuated with a black-clad woman. Hille also layers her musical motifs beautifully: snatches of songs\u2014and therefore stories\u2014float up in other pieces, reminding us of the commonality of their themes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s fantastic that Factory Theatre has picked up the show, co-produced with Acting Up Stage Company, for a February-long run in 2013. For further details, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To give more of a taste of what’s going on, here is Bill Richardson in a Vancouver TV interview:<\/p>\n