PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

January 19 – February 11

Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata

Your personal ads set to music! Irregular hats for cats, mounted lobsters, autographed copies of the bible: this new work from composer Veda Hille and the CBC’s Bill Richardson explores what humanity has to offer and turns it into side-splitting musical fare. Who wouldn’t want a broken time machine, for free? Come and take a look at the vagaries and intimacies of the internet. Featuring original songs including “Six Toes in Langley,” “Children’s Guillotine,” “Free Man’s Toupee” and “You dropped Your bible.” With more than 700 local sites in 70 countries, and over 20 billion page-views and 50 million new ads posted monthly, craigslist has become a treasured online locus where we are sanctioned to share our needs, wants, and offerings. Hille describes it as “the mass of humanity pressed against the glass,” offering a forum that is simultaneously anonymous and incredibly public. After its smashing debut as part of Twenty-Minute Musicals at club Push in 2009, Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata returns as a full-fledged production with 80 heartfelt minutes of quick-witted spoken text and song. Takes place at the Arts Club Revue Stage.

February 1 – 4

Almighty Voice and his Wife

Almighty Voice and His Wife is an iconic Canadian play that tells the story of a Cree man arrested for killing a cow without a license. Under threat of hanging he escapes, unleashing a year-long manhunt that gives rise to his status as a martyr and a legend. Described as “moving, disturbing, funny, confounding and beautiful” (The Coast), the work consists of two vividly contrasting acts that explore Almighty Voice as both victim and hero. The first act is a tender and intimate portrait of him and his wife in life; the second is an outlandish white-faced vaudeville routine of the two in death. Takes place at the Waterfront Theatre.