directOr’S nOte
a man carrying his death in his own veins becomes obsessed with a beautiful young serial killer from a chance encounter with a wanted poster on the paris metro.
it’s 1988, and as europe rumbles under the imminent collapse of the eastern bloc, over in the west, its most wanted criminal is roberto succo, also known as jean, luis, andre, kurt, pol, the full-moon killer, the killer with the eyes of ice, and the dark cherub. a man who killed his parents, escaped from prison, and committed a string of murders, robberies, and violent sexual assaults, seemingly with no motive or reason. the man on the metro platform is bernard-marie koltès, the most promising playwright of his generation, infected already with the virus that would take his life the next spring.
in the year that remained to koltès, he transposed the true-crime saga of succo into a feverish neo-noir, painting succo-as-zucco as a modern myth. in koltès’ play, zucco is a slaughterer wrestling with destiny, a sun deity pulsing with glorifying violence.
slavo žižek distinguishes between subjective violence (appalling eruptions of violence perpetrated by an individual, such as rape, murder, terrorism), and objective violence (the structural or systemic violence that often goes unnoticed and unremarked on, the violence of “frictionless capitalism,” the nuclear family, and the police state). in roberto zucco, koltès renders his world’s objective violence horrifying, and zucco’s subjective violence heroic.
i’ve been perplexed, in the past few years, by a massive resurgence of AIDS narratives. perhaps it makes sense—the zeitgeist is cyclical, and drag race has racked up a record number of emmys driven by teary HIV-status disclosures in the werkroom, not to mention that other pandemic. but in the bubblegum pink abyss of reality tv and uniqlo keith haring merch, i’m overstuffed with high-fructose sentimentality and i long for the bitterness of the raw queer rage that actually made it better.
halfway through this rehearsal process, i had to ask myself, in that time, in that hellscape of helplessness, i would probably be filled with fantasies of ultraviolence myself. how much hopelessness does it take for emancipatory rage to turn fascistic?
roberto zucco is not an easy play or an obviously queer play. it is a brutal play full of tenderness and beauty, it is a breathless prayer to summon a hurricane that will crumble walls and tear up the prisons and the fitted kitchens. it’s the stations of the cross for a saviour with no salvation. as koltès’ anti-hero cruises from scene to scene, for me the most memorable moments are not the acts of violence, but the startling intimacies we find in the shadows cast by casual, towering, everyday cruelty, and the throbbing sense of longing for the light of a different age, even if it needs to be carved with a fiery sword. – ted witzel
artISt bIOS
ted witzel (he/him) // director – ted witzel is a queer theatremaker and artistic leader based in Toronto / Tkaròn:to (these days). Primarily a director, ted is also variously a dramaturg, curator, teacher, writer, translator, designer, and performer. He has worked with theatres and cultural organizations across Canada, the UK, Germany, and Italy (she gets around). Fusing high-octane performance, rigorous dramaturgy, filthy homosexuality, digital aesthetics, and poetic text, ted’s directing is located at the intersection between the personal and the political, and the (visceral, emotional, intellectual) frictions between them. Previous Buddies credits: Artist-in-Residence 2014 – 18 with LULU // aspects of a femme fatale, The Scavenger’s Daughter [2019], Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce (the afterparty) [2020].
Samantha Brown [she/her] // girl / kid / voice — This isn’t Samantha’s first time at Buddies… this lesbian blended-race Anishinaabe and European storyteller from Onaping, Ontario has had many delicious moments inside these damp walls. Whether it be performing in The Scavenger’s Daughter pointing a rifle at a cook, or embarking on a directorial debut with White Girls in Moccasins, Buddies has been her first in a lot of ways. This show marks Samantha’s first show back in Tkaròn:to since she packed her bags and moved to Australia vowing she was taking an extended hiatus… but something pulled her back.
Jakob Ehman // Roberto Zucco – Hi, this is my Buddies debut. Recently I did Cock with TiFT, and four seasons at Stratford Festival. Before that, shows at Tarragon, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, Theatre Passe Muraille, Safeword, YPT, and more. I’m a second-gen Canadian of Icelandic descent and I’ve got a couple of Dora nominations, but no hardware. <3JBBJ
Fiona Highet [she/her] // mother / elegant Lady / Zucco’s mother / distressed prostitute – Fiona Highet was last lucky enough to work on the Buddies stage in Daniel Brooks’ Insomnia. Other selected theatre credits include Poison (Coalmine Theatre), and originating roles in Jordan Tannahill’s Late Company, Brigitte Haentjen’s Tout Comme Elle, Daniel Brooks’ The Eco Show, Daniel MacIvor’s You Are Here and How It Works, George F. Walker’s End of Civilization, Missing by Florence Gibson, House of Many Tongues, Bea’s Niece, and The Gist directed by Richard Rose, and John Mighton’s The Little Years. Selected film and television credits include: Saint Pierre, Cardinal, Picture Day, Slings and Arrows, This is Wonderland. Fiona also writes and directs films.
Daniel MacIvor (he/him) // father / gentleman / officer / chief / impatient pimp / voice – Daniel was born into Toronto theatre at Buddies in Bad Times back in the late 80’s. Buddies funded the writing of his first play (See Bob Run) and he appeared as an actor in many shows; highlights include Ban This Show and Sick (a co-pro with DNA Theatre). Later his play Arigato, Tokyo was directed by
Brendan Healy in Brendan’s last season at Buddies. Daniel is honoured to be part of ted’s first season and to be a member of this wonderful company. Recent theatre work: The Inheritance [Canadian Stage] and the upcoming Your Show Here [Factory Theatre].
Kwaku Okyere (Kway-koo Och-ree) [he/him] // brother / detective / bruiser / voice – Kwaku Okyere is a Toronto-based actor and director. Previously at Buddies: Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre Rusticle); Woke in Shove It Down My Throat (Pandemic). Upcoming: Richie in Craze (Tarragon); T in People, Places, and Things (Coal Mine). Selected directing credits: The Tempest: A Witch in Algiers (Shakespeare in the Ruff); Late Company (Green Light Arts). Graduate of the Langham Directors’ Workshop (Stratford Festival). Kwaku is so grateful for the love and support of his family, blood and chosen.
Oyin Oladejo // sister / officer / sergeant / madam / voice – Theatre: Three Sisters, Noises Off, A Doll’s House, Spoon River, Happy Place, Eurydice, Tartuffe, The Crucible, Idiot’s Delight [Soulpepper], American Son (Drayton), Is God Is (Canadian Stage), The Cherry Orchard (Crow’s), The Father (Coal Mine), Hamlet (Sidney Harmen Hall), TomorrowLove (Outside The March), In This World (Roseneath), The Power of Harriet (Young People’s). Film/TV: Hudson & Rex (Shaftesbury); The Call to the Void (Zargara Productions), The Village Keeper (levelFILM and CBC), Orah (Circle Blue Entertainment), Star Trek: Discovery (CBS), Six Guns for Hire (Del Gratia Pictures), Endlings (CBC/Hulu), Lucky Day [Metropolitan/ Carmody Prod.), Pond (Pond Prod.).
Gislina Patterson [he/they] // dramaturg – Gislina Patterson is a playwright, performer, director, and dramaturg. His play i am your spaniel, or, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare by Gislina Patterson has been presented by SummerWorks, Buddies in Bad Times, and the London Ontario Media Arts Association. They dramaturged and directed Dasha Plett’s award winning play 8054821 which toured to SummerWorks, OFFTA, PushOFF, Théâtre Catapulte, and Buddies in Bad Times. They co-directed the premiere of Rencor Vivo by The Mariachi Ghost with Jorge Requena Ramos at the Prismatic Festival, and were the 2019 recipient of the Reg Skene Award for Emerging Artists.
Michelle Tracey [she/they] // set + costume designer – Michelle Tracey is a designer for stage and screen. Likes: theatre, scenography, drag, sewing, dance, climate justice, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Dislikes: apathy, writing bios. Previous Buddies credits include 45 Years of Messy Queers, Every Day She Rose (Nightwood Theatre), The Scavenger’s Daughter (Paradigm Productions), The Terrible Parents (The Cabaret Company) and more, probably. Design credits elsewhere include: WILDWOMAN, Wedding at Aulis, Sisters, Waiting for Godot (Soulpepper Theatre), Candida, The Clearing (Shaw Festival), Every Little Nookie, Nathan the Wise (Stratford), Behind the Moon, This Was The World, Much Ado About Nothing (Tarragon Theatre), Indecent (Studio 180), Hamlet, Julius Caesar (Canadian Stage). www.michelletraceydesign.com
Logan Raju Cracknell [he/they] // lighting designer – Logan Raju Cracknell is a Dora-nominated designer who works in dance, theatre, opera, and live events. Their work has taken them to theatres across the country and globe. Select credits include: A Year with Frog and Toad (Capitol Theatre), Carmen (Toronto City Opera), Give ‘Em Hell (Prairie Fire, Please/Theatre Direct), Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Theatre Calgary), Bobbie and Icemen (Theatre by the Bay), Fairview (Canadian Stage/Obsidian Theatre Company), Prodigal (Howland Company), The Extinction Therapist (Theatre Aquarius), Enemy Lines (Aeris Korper), Agit-Pop! (Pearle Harbour), Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Howland/Crow’s), Jesus Christ Superstar (Theatre Sheridan), Alice in Wonderland (Bad Hats Theatre), Blackout (The Musical Stage Company), Hamlet, Midsummer Night’s Dream (Canadian Stage), William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal (Crow’s Theatre).
Dasha Plett (she/her) // composer + sound designer – Dasha Plett (aka PRINCESS DASHA) is a Winnipeg-based transsexual and artist working with performance, writing, and music, and a member of IATSE local ADC659. Dasha is one half of We Quit Theatre, a performance collective with Gislina Patterson that has toured nationally to Buddies, PushOFF, OFFTA, SummerWorks, LOMAA, and Théâtre Catapulte. Informed by practices of psychoanalysis, collective creation, and plunderphonics, her work is about the relationship between fantasy, materiality, repression, liberation, and the always emergent real. She was once arrested and charged with mischief by the Winnipeg Police Major Crimes Unit. Visit Dasha online at www.princessdasha.com. Previous Buddies credits: Dasha was co-creator of the digital presentation of 805-4821, and co-creator of the We Quit Theatre anthology series; this is her first appearance as a designer!
Laura Baxter (she/her) // stage manager – Select credits include: Black Boys, Arigato Tokyo, Obaaberima, The Maids, The 20th of November, Breakfast, The Silicone Diaries, Neon Nightz (Buddies), A Streetcar Named Desire, Da Kink in My Hair, Pipeline (Soulpepper) Truth, The Darkest Dark (YPT), Topdog/ Underdog, Sweat, Venus in Fur, Dream in High Park (Canadian Stage), Indecent, Oslo, My Night With Reg (Studio180), Treemonisha (Volcano), Here Lies Henry, Trout Stanley (Factory Theatre), 11:11, Elle (Theatre Passe Muraille), Soliciting Temptation (Tarragon Theatre), The Berlin Blues, Ipperwash (Blyth Festival), The Story, Macbeth (Caravan Farm Theatre). Thank you to my amazing wife Shawn and our daughter Amari for your unconditional love and support.
Kayla Thomas (she/her) // apprentice stage manager – Kayla Thomas is privileged to be originally from Vancouver, the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilw ətaɬ (TsleilWaututh) Nations. Recent credits include Dream in High Park: Hamlet (Canadian Stage), The Waltz, Armadillos (Factory Theatre), Behind the Moon, Three Women of Swatow (Tarragon Theatre), The Walk-Up (Soulpepper Academy), Older & Reckless (MoonHorse Dance Theatre). Her ambitions centre around impactful entertainment that showcases diverse forms of storytelling, a commitment she aims to carry throughout her stage management career in Toronto.
Anita Nittoly // fight + intimacy director – Selected fight + intimacy director credits: Stratford Festival 2024 season; Bad Roads/Prodigal (Crows); Angels in America (Buddies); The Retreat (Imago); The Retreat (YPT); JCS (Here For Now); Wildwoman (Soulpepper), Hamlet (Canadian Stage/The Rose); Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes (TIP), Fall on Your Knees (Canadian Stage/NAC); Fairview (Canadian Stage); Counter Offence (Segal Centre); Trojan Girls and The Outhouse of Atreus (Outside The March/Factory Theatre); Our Place (Cahoots/ TPM); The Last Wife, The 39 Steps, Successions (Centaur Theatre); Whole World (Carousel Players). Selected Stunt Performer credits: Law & Order Toronto, SEE, Star Trek: Discovery, Pretty Hard Cases, Titans, The Boys, Rabbit Hole, various Ubisoft motion capture.
playwright + tranSlatOr
Bernard-Marie Koltès // Playwright
Bernard-Marie Koltès is the most celebrated French playwright of the past forty years, an international figure already before his early death from AIDS-related complications in 1989. His groundbreaking work is a staple of modern theatre and addresses present-day issues such as sexual identity, social injustice, gender, and racial discrimination. As importantly, his style transformed the genre of modern drama in unprecedented ways, aligning him with a tradition of visionary twentiethcentury playwrights who changed the theatre as a medium.
Born in 1948, deceased in 1989, his language reflects a world view pervaded by upheaval and the guilt of decolonization. His intense, rigorous body of work includes the masterpieces Combat de nègre et de chiens (1979), Dans la solitude des champs de coton (1985), Le retour au désert (1988) and Roberto Zucco (1988); his plays have been staged by the great Peter Stein in Berlin and, notably, Patrice Chéreau in Nanterre and Paris.
Martin Crimp // Translator
Martin Crimp, born 1956, is a British playwright whose 1997 play, Attempts on her Life, established his international reputation. His plays range from elliptical dramas of contemporary life — Definitely the Bahamas (1987), Dealing with Clair (1989), The Country (2000), The City (2008), Men Asleep (2018)— to re-imaginings of Greek classics — Cruel and Tender (2004) and The rest will be familiar to you from cinema (2013). Recent notable productions include When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other – 12 Variations on Samuel Richardson’s ‘Pamela’ (2019) at London’s National Theatre, an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac (2022) in London and BAM in New York, and a revival of The Country at the Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris (2023). Martin’s first solo show as writer and performer, Not one of these people (2022), opened at the Carrefour International Theatre Festival in Québec City before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre in London. In 2020 Martin was awarded the Nyssen-Bansemer Theatre Prize.
a BuddIes In Bad TImes produCTIon
roBerTo ZuCCo
WriTTen By
Bernard-marIe kolTÈs
TranslaTed By marTIn CrImp
dIreCTed By Ted WITZel
sepT 15 – oCT 5, 2024
a BuddIes In Bad TImes and denIm + pyThIa Co-produCTIon
oraCulum
CreaTed By denIm + pyThIa
nuIT BlanChe and BuddIes In Bad TImes presenT
nuIT BlanChe (nuIT des mauvaIs Jours)
feaTurIng fakeknoT, karIm olen ash, vivek shraya + ChrisTopher sherman, and Xlq
oCT 5, 2024
a Bad neW days produCTIon In parTnershIp WITh Common BooTs TheaTre
ToronTo frInge presenTs
neXT sTage TheaTre fesTIval
feaTurIng Works By keir CuTler, louise Casemore, lyndsey Bourne, frankÉTienne, lou CampBell, and Bonnie duff
oCT 16 – 27, 2024
deC 1 – 15, 2024
a BuddIes In Bad TImes and naTIve earTh performIng arTs Co-produCTIon
There Is vIolenCe and There Is rIghTeous vIolenCe and There Is deaTh or, The Born-agaIn CroW
By CaleIgh CroW
dIreCTed By JessICa
CarmIChael
mar 9 – 29, 2025
BuddIes In Bad TImes parTy In resIdenCe
ConCeived and dIreCTed By adam paoloZZa CreaTIve produCer vICTor pokInko
Jan 12 – 26, 2025 lasT landsCape
a nIghTWood TheaTre produCTIon In assoCIaTIon WITh BuddIes In Bad TImes
sheddIng a skIn
By amanda WIlkIn dIreCTed By CherIssa rIChards
The 46Th edITIon of fesTIval dIreCTor ludmylla reIs
feB 13 – 23, 2025 The rhuBarB fesTIval
a BuddIes In Bad TImes performanCe serIes In parTnershIp WITh fu-gen TheaTre, pnsnv, and penCIl kIT produCTIons
apr 22 – may 4, 2025
a podCasT By vivek shraya, Co-produCed WiTh Buddies in Bad Times
oCT 31 | feB 1 | pride ’25 neW ho queen queer asian love I Won’T envy
never Walk alone By JulIe phan goner By marIkIsCryCryCry reIna By augusTo BITTer BIJurIya By gaBrIel dharmoo
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buddIeS In bad tImeS theatre tOrOntO’S leadIng deStInatIOn FOr artIStIcally rIgOrOuS alternatIve theatre and a wOrld leader In develOpIng
Queer StOrIeS FOr the Stage
audaCity. liBeration. [artistiC] rigour.
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