It has been a long and quirky road for Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata by Vancouver’s Veda Hille, Bill Richardson and Amiel Gladstone of Theatre Replacement. Ever since it began out of a 20-minute sample commissioned by the PuSh Festival and Theatre Conspiracy in 2011, it has evolved into a full-length show and toured from British Columbia to Calgary to the Yukon, including a stint in Toronto with Acting Up Stage and Factory Theatre in 2013.
As the show nears the end of the its tour with a run in Ottawa’s National Arts Centre from Nov. 12 to 22, we spoke to director and co-writer Amiel Gladstone about the journey. More
With our tour ofDo You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantataall closed up for now, we’ve got to see we’re gonn miss these guys! Luckily, we’ve saved Selina Martin for last. With her quirky, distinct style she has brought so much of herself to A Craigslist Cantata that we couldn’t possibly imagine the piece without her. In our final Craigslist triple threat, Selina shares her deadpan humour that we just can’t get enough of.
What musical’s score will you always remember?
Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata - Veda Hille writes incredibly catchy tunes. I still find myself singing them aloud months after the last performance. More
As the tour of Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata wraps up, we present the third cast member, Qasim Khan’s, Triple Threat. Qasim’s unique style has brought a distinct vibrancy to the piece, and we’re sad to see the run come to an end. As he gets ready to put his clarinet to bed on Sunday, Qasim indulges us (and himself?) with his love of musical theatre, ABBA and foreign recordings of Mamma Mia.
What musical’s score will you always remember?
The Phantom of the Opera. I love when composers let contemporary sound seep in to works that sound ‘classic’ like Phantom. I love the vibe that’s created when you mix things like electric guitars and rock drums, or some synthetic textures, with acoustic instruments. There are musical moments in Phantom that will always get me. The Overture, obviously, but there’s a little piece that leads in to “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” called “Journey to the Cemetery”that’s stunning. Right now I love scores like Once, and Anne & Gilbert, that are stripped-down and minimal. The orchestrations are so economic, and serve the simplicity of the stories. More
This weekend, we bid a bond farewell to Edmonton as A Craigslist Cantatawraps up its run there. For today’s throwback, we asked Bree Greig (who is wrapping up the Edmonton run) and Dmitry Chepovetsky (who is part of the National Arts Centre’s 2013-14 company) to take a moment to reflect on this shot from last year’s incredible production at Factory Theatre.
Photography by Joanna Akyol
Bree: This number appeared right before the last piece of the show. When we did the show in Vancouver, I was out in the audience for the first half of this song and got to watch Dmitry’s clown every night which was one of my favorite parts. With the staging of the TO production, I was bummed that I didn’t get to see his performance like I had in Vancouver. His clown was so awkward, silly, yet heart filled and endearing and I really liked that combination of weird, yet somehow sad. To me, that is kind of an overarching theme for the show. We all know about the oddities and weird-ness that’s out there on Craigslist, but these people are honestly putting themselves out there no matter how weird and they crave community and connection just as we all do which can make even the oddest Craigslist ad endearing and heartfelt.
Dmitry: So this was probably one of my favourite numbers of the show. The image was a conclusion to the narrative storyline of an earlier song called ‘clown on stilts’. To achieve this, in the blackout between, a nose, a hat, and specifically folded pants, which were stacked behind me on the piano, needed to be added before the lights came up in 16 counts. The challenge, when standing on the piano, was making sure the shoes that were attached to the bottom of the legs faced forward when they hit the floor, to complete the image of the stilts and also of course, hit the narrow corridor of light. It was a fun, albeit stressful game to play. The beautiful arrangement and simplicity of the layered melodies in the round, the call back of phrases of previous songs, the specificity of lighting, and the pathos and longing, made the number haunting, funny and sad. The family coming together before the last number.
BTW, this is why the factory studio stage needed to be lowered downstage.
The tour of Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantatais well underway, having opened to rave reviews in Calgary and opening in Edmonton tonight. While the cast was getting their last minute notes in, we go in touch with Josh Epstein, who has performed all across the country: from winning a Jessie Aware for Spelling Bee in Vancouver, to Anne of Green Gables in Charlottetown to Toronto’s own Lord of the Rings. As he gets ready for opening night of A Craigslist Cantata in Edmonton (tonight), Josh outs himself as someone who actually listened to showtunes on CD and pre-file sharing!
What musical’s score will you always remember?
Parade. I recall so vividly my best friend Zeyn Ali coming back from NYC and demanding I listen to Jason Robert Brown’s “King of the World” from Songs For a New World (pre-napster!). We listened to it over and over. Like most young tenors you just want to sing as high and as loud as you can, throw some licks in the mix, and maybe a little ‘acting’ and here I could do all that with a new musical sound that connected to me more than the ‘classic’ sound. You could almost play it in front of your non-theatre friends…almost. So I ordered Parade the day it came out on Amazon. Got the CD in the mail, unwrapped and listened to it reading every page of the book. I finished it and had no idea how I felt, except that I had to listen to it again right then and there. More
