Openings We're Tracking This Week, October 1-6, 2012

Dmitry Chepovetsky in Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata. Photo by Tim Matheson.

Jerome Kilty has just died. What, you may ask, has that got to do with the price of theatre tickets? It was Kilty, with his two-hander play Dear Liar, who brought to great public attention the platonic love affair between actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell and George Bernard Shaw. It was this romance, with all the bickering and humour for which the pair - via their letters - became famous that perhaps the greatest of the Shavian works was born. Pygmalion is - as you may know from an episode of the late, great Newhart series - My Fair Lady without the songs. It is, indeed, that, but also so much more. Shaw created one of his most complete figures in Eliza Doolittle, the flower girl, who falls in the hands of a linguist and is transformed into a lady. (Oshawa, Ontario)

Singin' In The Rain is the movie about movies but not just with all the songs, but with a text that brings to life, on the stage, one of the best scripts in film history. You know the iconic song of the title, of course, but there are at least 10 other tunes in the show that will send you out into the street, singin' for all to hear. (Vancouver)

And more songs! It's a little work that - in its very short life - has become a darling of Canadian theatre and, during its initial run, sold out. It is Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata. Can a merchandise/relationship/ "services" website fulfill dreams? It is the kind of question musicals are made of. (On tour in British Columbia and to Whitehorse)