Andrew Staniland and Jill Battson met at Tapestry’s 2004 LIBLAB. Their 5-minute scene was the seed for this more extended version, greatly enhanced by the instrumental ensemble with which Staniland creates the emotional tension between the characters within the pounding music of the bar. The text is proof that poetry can be a very effective contemporary medium for such a gritty subject. To further the development of Ashlike, director Tom Diamond guided the creative team and cast on a research tour of Church Street bars on a cold February night.

- Wayne Strongman

Ashlike on the Cradle of the Wind is based, in part, on a piece written during LIBLAB; it is also about sex and death - most of my work generally is. As for process, in LIBLAB, I wrote one sex scene and one death scene, and for Opera to Go, I completed the story of the relationship by adding other scenes to bring the narrative of those two men’s lives to the composition. I began by writing about the world of AIDS I knew during the mid-‘80s and early ‘90s pandemic. This newer piece explores the relationship between a younger gay man and an older man in a historical context. For instance, today’s 50-year-old woman has been impacted in a vastly different way than her twenty-something counterpart by feminism. I wanted to investigate the impact of gay liberation on inter-generational relationships. I also wanted to explore and write about drug culture and its relationship to HIV and AIDS. Large themes presented here as a very tight piece; it’s presented in poetic form, and the way I’ve crafted the stanzas echoes the nature of relationships: there are solos; equal amounts of singing; and as each character’s part develops, they take on one another’s phrasing and places in the narrative world, through the written word, much like a contemporary relationship!

- Jill Battson for Word Magazine, 2006

“...touching and intimately personal...”

- Xtra Magazine