E S TA B L I S H E D 1979 Toronto’s leading destination for artistically rigorous alternative theatre and a world leader in developing queer voices and stories for the stage.
design
Lucinda Wallace photography
Tanja-Tiziana styling
Vanessa Fischer hair + makeup
Robert Weir
Studio Assistants
Eyob Desalange ( Styling ) Toru Gabriela Miyake Gallardo ( Hair + MAkeUp ) Stephanie Tung ( Photography ) additional photography
Jeremy Mimnagh ( pg 27 + 29 ) Copy Editing
Lesley Fraser
2019 – 20 SEASON
T H E B U D D I E S R E S I D E N C Y P R O G R A M ���� 6 P A S S O V E R ��������������������������������������������������� 9 October 22–November 10, 2019
2 - S P I R I T C A B A R E T ���������������������������������� 11 November 16, 2019
E V E R Y D A Y S H E R O S E ������������������������������ 13 November 23–December 8, 2019
.M I D S U M M E R N I G H T ’ S D R E A M ������������� 15 Ja n ua r y 1 4 – 2 6 , 2 0 2 0
T H E R H U B A R B F E S T I V A L ������������������������ 17 F e b r ua r y 1 2 – 2 2 , 2 0 2 0
B O X 4 9 0 1 ���������������������������������������������������� 19 F e b r ua r y 2 7– M a r c h 8 , 2 0 2 0
M I N E ����������������������������������������������������������� 21 March 21–April 5, 2020
.R E V O L T . S H E S A I D . R E V O L T A G A I N . ���� 23 April 12–26, 2020
.M U S I K F Ü R D A S E N D E ����������������������������� 25 M ay 6 – 9 , 2 0 2 0
.K I I N A L I K : T H E S E S H A R P T O O L S ����������� 26 On Tour
O B A A B E R I M A �������������������������������������������� 28 On Tour
T I C K E T S ������������������������������������������������������ 30 S E A S O N C A L E N D A R ���������������������������������� 31 O U R D O N O R S ��������������������������������������������� 32 .O U R S P O N S O R S + P A R T N E R S ����������������� 33
E VA LY N PA R R Y, ARTISTIC DIREC TOR
OUR QUEER IS... Our queer is beautiful. Our queer is lesbian and gay, it is trans and non-binary, it is intersex, it is bi and poly and pan, it is 2-Spirit, it is ace, it is demi, and it is so much more. Our queer is all the letters in our alphabet rainbow; it is all the letters that have yet to be included and the ones that are yet to be discovered. Our queer is intersectional. Our queer is Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour. Our queer is trans, non-binary, and 2-Spirit.
Our queer demands justice. Our queer seeks meaningful inclusion. Our queer holds space for our differences, spaces we each can call our own and spaces where we can come together. Our queer listens. Our queer is listening. Our queer is evolving. Our queer is political.
Our queer is a diversity of abilities, and ages, and races, and incomes, and sexualities, and genders.
Our queer is feminist.
Our queer is acknowledging the historical exclusion and increased persecution that these communities face inside and outside of their queerness.
Our queer is truth and reconciliation.
Our queer is anti-racist. Our queer is anti-colonial.
Our queer is the global struggle for legal equality. Our queer is without borders.
Our queer is opposition to dominant power structures and the fight to dismantle them; our queer is nonconforming. Our queer is built on a history of activism. Our queer is allied with struggles for justice and the right to exist. Our queer is a fuck you, our queer is a riot, our queer is a raised fist. Our queer is the trans woman of colour who threw the first brick. Our queer is intergenerational. Our queer is the people before us on whose shoulders we stand and the generations to come who we will lift up to new heights. Our queer is the heritage that is not handed down by birth but must be sought after, discovered, and built on our own. Our queer is all the people erased from our history because there wasn’t a word for their queerness.
Our queer is the generation we lost to AIDS and the history that went with it. Our queer is the families we build for ourselves through love and friendship, and the bigger queer family that we all belong to. Our queer is sexual. Our queer is the possibilities of a sexuality liberated from historical and colonial oppression. Our queer is consent. Our queer is sex free from the bounds of monogamy, misogyny, and repression. Our queer is sex without stigma or discrimination. Our queer is free access to sexual-health resources and education. Our queer is the sex that needs love to accompany it. Our queer is the love that does not need sex to express it. Our queer is kink; our queer is leather, and rubber, and toys, and submission.
Our queer is an exploration of pleasure. Our queer is fucking in bathhouses, and backrooms, and parks, and on beaches. Our queer is sex free of shame. Our queer is sexual liberation. Our queer is our art. Our queer is theatre, and books, and music, and movies, and painting, and poetry. Our queer is drag queens and kings. Our queer is our stories. Our queer is authored by us. Our queer is DIY. Our queer is risk and experimentation. Our queer defies convention. Our queer includes permission to fail. Our queer is the power of seeing ourselves reflected in unexpected places; it is the joy of seeing our experience explored and celebrated.
Our queer interrupts the dominant narrative to question authority and lift up the voiceless. Our queer is a beacon of light for the lonely and hopeless. Our queer is radical self-expression. Our queer is a word that feels different on every tongue that speaks it, in every body that holds it. Our queer is a place where conflict can exist. Our queer is the tension of shared space. Our queer is reinventing language. Our queer is difficult, unruly. Our queer is love. Our queer is anger. Our queer is struggle. Our queer is hope. Our queer is possibility. Our queer is a dream for a better world.
THE BUDDIES RESIDENCY PROGRAM Artistic Associate
Mel Hague
Now in its 10th year, the Buddies Residency Program commissions and develops new queer work for the stage. Using a bespoke artist-centred approach, we work with writers, theatre collectives, directors, performance artists, and choreographers to create meaningful opportunities to explore new work and the creation process through a distinctly queer lens.
OPE N S T U D I OS M AY 11 – 28, 2020 For three weeks, our resident artists take over the building to write, rehearse, try out new things, and share what they’ve been working on. This is where artists and audiences converge at Buddies to experience the creative process and support the development of new queer performance.
2 0 1 9 –2 0 ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE Bilal Baig + Angel Glady Khwaja Sera Yolanda Bonnell White Girls in Moccasins Bruce Gibbons Fell The Communist Manifesto for Children Leah Lewis + Robert Chafe The Dialysis Project Justin Miller Distant Early Warning The Queer AF Collective Undecided Heath V Salazar Antecristo The We Other Sons Collective What’s Done, Must Come
2019–20 Season
6 Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
H E AT H V S A L A Z A R
HAPPIE MICHA EDWARDS
JUSTIN MILLER
YOLANDA BONNELL
BRANDON MCKNIGHT
An Obsidian Theatre production
PASS OVER w r i t t e n b y Antoinette Nwandu d i r e c t e d b y Philip Akin s t a r r i n g Kaleb Alexander,
Alex McCooeye + Brandon McKnight Moses and Kitch stand around on the corner – just passing time and hoping that maybe today will be different. As they dream of their promised land, a stranger wanders into their space with his own agenda and derails their plans. Emotional and lyrical, Pass Over crafts everyday profanities into poetic and humorous riffs, exposing the unquestionable human spirit of young men who are stuck in a cycle and are looking for a way out.
“Ingenious, poetic and unsettling. An intimate political play that will leave you shaken” –Time Out New York
OC TOBER 22 – NOVEMBER 10, 2019
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
9 2019–20 Season
MICHAELA WASHBURN
Native Earth Performing Arts in partnership with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre presents
A celebration of queer and 2-Spirit Indigenous performance
2-SPIRIT CABARET C u r a t e d b y Michaela
Washburn
Back for a fourth year, the 2-Spirit Cabaret is a celebration of the strength, beauty, and talent of queer and 2-Spirit Indigenous people. Buddies and Native Earth present an evening of performances, music, and spoken word as part of Weesageechak Begins to Dance 32 – Native Earth’s annual development festival of Indigenous work.
N OV E MBE R 1 6 , 2019
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
11 2019–20 Season
NICK GREEN + ANDREA SCOTT
A Nightwood Theatre production
Politics, privilege, and friendship
EVERY DAY SHE ROSE W r i t t e n b y Andrea Scott + Nick Green D i r e c t e d b y Andrea Donaldson + Sedina
Fiati
The personal becomes political in this collaboratively created new work from playwrights Andrea Scott and Nick Green. When racial and queer politics collide at the 2016 Toronto Pride parade, two best friends discover that the things that brought them together may now drive them apart. A hilarious and heartbreaking stare-down of privilege and oppression.
NOVEMBER 23 – DECEMBER 8, 2 019
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
13 2019–20 Season
A L LY S O N M C M AC KO N
A Theatre Rusticle production
Be as thou wast wont to be; See as thou wast wont to see.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM d i r e c t e d b y Allyson McMackon E n s e m b l e Rick Campbell, Burgandy Code,
Amanda Cordner, Michael Derworiz, Nick Eddie, Matthew Finlan, Sarah Gale, Richard Lee, Brandon Kleiman, Alexa MacDougall, Alexandra Montagnese, Sarah O’Brien, Kwaku Okyere, Michelle Ramsay, Matthew Rossoff + Annie Tuma
Shakespeare’s iconic A Midsummer Night’s Dream collides with Theatre Rusticle’s imagistic and physically poetic performance style to tell a lusciously dark story about love and a world out of balance. The company’s hallmark physicality bends this timeless fantasy, shattering the dusty myths and offering an intimate new view of lovers, fairies, theatre-makers, and Shakespeare.
J A N UA RY 1 4 – 2 6 , 2020
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
15 2019–20 Season
C L AY TO N L E E
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre presents
THE RHUBARB FESTIVAL
“The wildest theatre fest in town” –Toronto Life
f e s t i v a l d i r e c t o r Clayton C u r a t o r i a l C o ll e c t i v e
Lee
Vanden Boomen, Theresa Cutknife, Claudia Edwards + Victoria Mata
Canada’s longest-running new works festival transforms Buddies into a hotbed of experimentation, with artists exploring new possibilities in theatre, dance, music, and performance art. Rhubarb is the place to see the most adventurous ideas in performance and to catch your favourite artists venturing into uncharted territory.
FE BRUA RY 12 – 2 2 , 2020
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
17 2019–20 Season
BRIAN FRANCIS
A timeshare production
BOX 4901 C r e a t e d b y Brian Francis d i r e c t e d + c o - c r e a t e d b y Rob Kempson s t a r r i n g Brian Francis, Hume Baugh,
Samson Brown, Keith Cole, Daniel Ellis, Jeff Ho, Michael Hughes, Indrit Kasapi, Daniel Krolik, Eric Morin, G Kyle Shields, Chy Ryan Spain, Chris Tsujiuchi + Geoffrey Whynot In 1992, novelist Brian Francis placed a personal ad in the newspaper. In total, he received 25 responses, but there were 13 letters he never responded to. Now, at a much different stage in life, Brian has written replies to those letters. Featuring a cast of 13 queer actors, Box 4901 is a hilarious, strange, sweet, and awkward look back at how gay men used to find one another.
“Full of wisdom, humour and heartbreaking honesty” – NOW Magazine
F E B RUA RY 2 7 – MA RCH 8 , 2020
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
19 2019–20 Season
JENNA HARRIS
A Buddies in Bad Times Theatre production
Love is a battlefield
MINE W r i t t e n b y Jenna Harris d i r e c t e d b y Evalyn Parry s t a r r i n g Annie Briggs + Vanessa
Dunn
When the life they built together starts to collapse, two women plunge themselves into a fantastical and tumultuous journey into their shared past, attempting to recapture the magic in their relationship. Set on an imaginative stage design of memories come to life, Mine is a poetic contemplation of what happens to queer love when the lovers grow apart.
MA RCH 2 1 – A P R I L 5 , 2020
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
21 2019–20 Season
J E N N I F E R TA R V E R
A Discord and Din Theatre production
“Well-behaved women seldom make history” – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
REVOLT. SHE SAID. REVOLT AGAIN. W r i t t e n b y ALICE BIRCH d i r e c t e d b y JENNIFER TARVER
An explosive feminist text that unfolds as a series of provocations, tearing apart the language, structures, and ideas that keep women trapped within a patriarchal system. Firebrand indie company Discord and Din Theatre offers a fresh perspective on this irreverent, wildly experimental, and internationally celebrated play: a bawdy, ferocious, and galvanizing call to action for a new feminism, one that redefines the way we think about womanhood in the 21st century.
A P R I L 12 – 2 6 , 2020
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
23 2019–20 Season
AVIVA CHERNICK, KEITH LAM + VANIA CHAN
Soundstreams presents
MUSIK FÜR DAS ENDE c o m p o s e r Claude Vivier d i r e c t e d b y Chris Abraham p l a y w r i g h t Zack Russell
At the age of 34, Quebec composer Claude Vivier was murdered by a man he picked up in a Parisian bar. On his desk, an unfinished piece of music appeared to foretell his own death. The man and myth are inseparable from Vivier’s music, driven by a dangerous life lived at the very extremes of human experience. From there, he brought back a vision of the pure sound and light of eternity. In this immersive spectacle for 10 singers, actors, keyboards, and percussion, Vivier invites performers and audience to become celebrants in a transformative ritual journey through life, death, and beyond.
“Dramatically potent... a rare opportunity to encounter the theatricality of Vivier’s vision” – New York Times
MAY 6 – 9, 2020
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
25 2019–20 Season
ON TOUR A Buddies in Bad Times Theatre production
KIINALIK: THESE SHARP TOOLS c r e a t e d b y Evalyn Parry, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Erin Brubacher + Elysha Poirier with Cris Derksen
A concert and a conversation, Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools is the meeting place of two people, and the North and South of our country. Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and queer theatre-maker Evalyn Parry met on an Arctic expedition from Iqaluit to Greenland. Now sharing a stage, these two powerful storytellers map new territory together in a work that gives voice and body to the histories, culture, and climate we’ve inherited and asks how we reckon with these sharp tools. Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools continues to tour in 2019-20, breaking Buddies onto the international scene with an engagement at the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival before coming to Ottawa as part of the inaugural Indigenous Theatre season at Canada’s National Arts Centre.
“A bracing, beautiful, thought-provoking, unsettling, challenging show” – Intermission Magazine
2019–20 Season
26 Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
E V A L Y N P A R R Y + L A A K K U L U K W I L L I A M S O N B A T H O R Y
ON TOUR A Buddies in Bad Times Theatre production
OBAABERIMA Written + performed by
Tawiah Ben M’Carthy d i r e c t e d b y Evalyn Parry l i v e m u s i c b y Kobèna Aquaa-Harrison Imprisoned in Canada for committing a violent crime, a young man from Ghana tells his cellmates a story on the eve of his release. Although there is great risk in sharing his tale, he must tell it to be truly free. Through storytelling, dance, and live music, Obaaberima chronicles a young African-Canadian’s journey across continents, genders, races, and sexualities. This season’s tour to Montreal marks the fourth time this seminal, groundbreaking show has been remounted since its premiere in 2012.
“A tour-de-force” – Toronto Star
2019–20 Season
28 Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
TAW I A H B E N M ’ C A R T H Y
TICKETS Online
buddiesinbadtimes.com/tickets By Phone
416 - 975 - 8555 In Person
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PAY WH AT YO U CA N Pay What You Can means you pick the price of your ticket – and this year, we’re offering PWYC ticket options at over 40% of the performances in our Mainstage Season. If cost is a barrier, this is your chance to get an affordable ticket. If you are able to pay more, this is your chance to increase your support for the work on stage and ensure it stays affordable for those who need it.
2019–20 Season
30 Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
SEASON CALENDAR Performance P Preview O Opening
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 P
P
O
16
Every Day She Rose
NOV
NOV
2-Spirit Cabaret
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 P
P
O
DEC
P
NOV
OCT
Pass Over
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08
Midsummer Night’s Dream
JAN
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 P
P
O
The Rhubarb Festival
FEB
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
FEB
27 28 29 P
O
MAR
Box 4901 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 P
P
P
O
APR
MAR
Mine 01 02 03 04 05
APR
Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 P
P
P
O
MAY
Musik für das Ende 06 07 08 09 O
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
31 2019–20 Season
OUR DONORS LEGACY CIRCLE
LEADERS
A D V O C AT E S
$ 1,0 0 0 +
$50 0 +
Anonymous
Anonymous
Gerry Asselstine
Ed Cabell + Roy Forrester
Ken Aucoin + Gerald Crowell
Kate Bishop + Doug Gerhart
John Alan Lee
Derek Billsman
Sheila Lynn Cavanagh
Russell Mathew + Scott Ferguson
Michael Boyuk
Shawn Daudlin
The Bulmash-Siegel Fund
Sebastien Fauvel
Richard McLellan
Ed Cabell + Roy Forrester
Paul Hartwick
Jim Robertson + Jim Scott
VISIONARIES $ 5 , 000+ Brian Gibson + Terry MacPhee Jim Lawrence + David Salak Martha McCain
HEROES $ 2 , 5 00+ Lawrence Bennett Paul Butler + Chris Black Russell Mathew + Scott Ferguson Tom McGillis Pride @ Shopify Debra Shime + Michele Lent
Bob Gallagher
In Memory of Matthew James Hines
Mark German
Richard Isaac
Craig Hanson
Karim Karsan + John Rider
David M. Hendrie William Hodge + Robert Wylie
Lawrence Moore
Tim Jones + Taylor Raths
Evalyn Parry
Stephen McGregor + Tony de Franco
Jamie Slater
Beck + Mandy McNeil Ken Moffatt NigE Gough Foundation at the Toronto Community Foundation Jason Oord Mark Peacock Mark Pratt
Brian Sambourne James Tennyson Brian Terry Louis Tsilivis Kai Wa Yapp Lucinda Wallace + Lesley Fraser J. Wilkie + R. Kong
Jim Robertson + Jim Scott in Celebration of Buddies’ 40th Elliot Smith + Jonathan Steels Ayse Turak Jaime Woo
2019–20 Season
Brian Mossop
32 Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
Listed donations for March 1, 2018 – May 15, 2019
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C O R P O R AT E PARTNERS
PUBLIC AGENCIES
F O U N DAT I O N S
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