Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (BIBT) is a Canadian professional theatre company. Based in Toronto, Ontario, and founded in 1978 by Matt Walsh, Jerry Ciccoritti, and Sky Gilbert, Buddies in Bad Times is dedicated to "the promotion of queer theatrical expression". It's the largest and longest-running queer theatre company in the world.
Although the company eventually achieved notoriety and success in the 1980s as a queer theatre company, it wasn't founded with that intent. Buddies' original focus was on staged adaptations of poetry. However, during the 1980s, under the sole leadership of Sky Gilbert, Buddies developed a distinctly queer aesthetic and practice. The company is known for work that is political, pro-sexual, and anti-establishment. In 1983, Sue Golding joined the company as its founding Board President, a post which she held until 1995. Some of the company's earliest commercial and critical successes included productions of Gilbert's Lana Turner has Collapsed! (1980), The Dressing Gown (1984), Drag Queens on Trial (1985), and The Postman Rings Once (1987); Don Druik's Where is Kabuki? (1989); as well as the Sex Tours of the Church-Wellesley community hosted by Gilbert's drag persona Jane.
History
Buddies in Bad Times was established and incorporated in Toronto in 1979. Sky Gilbert was the company's first artistic director. Sue Golding was Board President from 1983 to 1995.
Buddies' inaugural production was a Sky Gilbert play, Angels in Underwear. An anthology of Beat poetry, Angels starred Matt Walsh as Jack Kerouac and Jerry Ciccoritti as Allen Ginsberg, and was performed at The Dream Factory on Queen Street in Toronto in September 1978.
Gilbert, Walsh, and Ciccoritti, along with playwright Fabian Boutilier, subsequently founded the Rhubarb Festival of Canadian Plays, first produced by the theatre company at The Dream Factory in January 1979 and featuring short plays written by local, unknown playwrights directed by all four of Rhubarb's founders.
The name Buddies in Bad Times was taken from the poem of the same title by the French poet Jacques Prévert. It was used between Walsh and Gilbert about their friendship during their years at York University and The Three Schools of Art.
Shortly after Walsh and Ciccoritti stopped working with the company in its infancy, Gilbert moved its artistic direction toward the then-emerging gay subculture of Toronto. Buddies has become one of North America's premiere queer theatres and has aided the successful careers of dozens of Canadian actors, playwrights, and directors.
1979–1983
Buddies was one of the six influential companies who banded together to form The Theatre Centre in Toronto—a movement of theatre that was hailed as the "next wave". Buddies formed an alliance with Nightwood Theatre to create six collaborative Rhubarb! Festivals. The Rhubarb! Festival was held for the first time in 1979.
By 1983 Buddies in Bad Times Theatre was receiving funding from four levels of government.
1985–1993
In 1985 BIBT gave birth to the 4-Play Festival which premiered at Theatre Passe Muraille. This festival was dedicated exclusively to the promotion of lesbian and gay writers and creators. Seed Shows came into being in 1986. The Seed show DNA Theatre's This Is What Happens in Orangeville won a jury prize at The Festival Des Ameriques in Montreal. Platform 9 Theatre's Steel Kiss was also produced, having been born out of Rhubarb! and developed through Seed. It is now known as one of the most important plays of the 1980s.
BIBT's first mainstage production, Sky Gilbert's The Postman Rings Once, opened with Toronto Workshop Productions at 12 Alexander Street in 1987. Tim Jones became general manager in 1988. By 1990 BIBT had been nominated for and presented with numerous cultural awards. In 1990, Gilbert's Drag Queens in Outer Space was produced in Seattle and San Francisco.
In 1991, BIBT set up its first permanent performance space at 142 George Street. Sky Gilbert's Suzie Goo: Private Secretary went on to win a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Production. Daniel MacIvor's 2-2-Tango was nominated for a Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award and Don Druick's Where Is Kabuki? was nominated for a Governor General's Award. BIBT also supported smaller independent companies, such as Platform 9 by Robin Fulford; Topological Theatre by Edward Roy; and the Augusta Company by Daniel Brooks, Don McKellar and Tracy Wright.
By 1993, BIBT had successfully negotiated a 40-year lease with the city and entered into a partnership with The Alexander Street Theatre Project, a company formed primarily to raise funds and manage expenses for the renovation of the theatre. Sue Golding was President throughout this period.
1994–1998
In 1994 BIBT opened its first season at Alexander Street with Sky Gilbert's More Divine. The community support for the company was at an all-time high, and Strange Sisters had achieved notoriety.
Queerculture, 4-Play, and Seed Shows all ended during this period. Associate artists took on a larger role of shaping the subsidized work in the building, and as a result there was great success with Daniel MacIvor's Here Lies Henry and The Soldier Dreams. Sky Gilbert's Ten Ruminations on An Elegy Attributed to William Shakespeare toured to glowing reviews in Great Britain with stops in London, Brighton, and Cardiff. Two anthologies of Sky Gilbert's plays were also published.
In 1996, Tim Jones resigned as general manager. 1997 marked the highly successful Martha Steward Projects and The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls and the resignation of founding artistic director Sky Gilbert. Sarah Stanley was appointed as Sky Gilbert's successor in April, and Gwen Bartleman was appointed general manager in July.
During the 1997–1998 season, BIBT's profile rose with the premiere of Brad Fraser's Martin Yesterday and Diane Flacks' Random Acts, as well as the 20th anniversary of Rhubarb! curated by festival director Franco Boni. RHUBARB-O-RAMA!, an anthology of works from the Rhubarb! Festival over the years, was published in 1998
1997–1998 heralded a renewed commitment to play development, marked by the birth of the Ante Chamber Series and the development of six scripts under the supervision of company dramaturg Edward Roy. In 1997, the theatre also hosted the inaugural We're Funny That Way! festival of LGBT comedians.
BIBT's programming grew more ambitious in 1998–1999; the company produced the world premiere of R. M. Vaughan's camera, woman, the Toronto premiere of Live With It by Winnipeg playwright Elise Moore, and the repertory run of Robin Fulford's Steel Kiss and Gulag.
1999–2000
In 1999, following a national search, David Oiye was hired as BIBT's third artistic director.
Expanding its commitment to gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth, BIBT launched its first annual Summer Youth Arts Programme in 1999, providing a summer-long outlet for twelve queer youth, and two year-round internship positions.
BIBT's 1999 tribute to Canadian singer-songwriter Carole Pope, Shaking the Foundations, received Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations for Outstanding Production, Direction, and Musical Direction, and won in the category of Outstanding Female Performance (for Paula Wolfson).
BIBT also increased its commitment to new play development in 1999 by introducing Winter Fling in partnership with the Shaw Festival, to develop and present workshops of new Canadian scripts.
2000–2003
Over the 2000–2001 season, BIBT programmed Vancouver-based artist Dorothy Dittrich's award-winning musical When We Were Singing, Winnipeg playwright Ken Brand's comedy Burying Michael, and PileDriver! from Edmonton-based companies Guys in Disguise and Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie.
For the 2001–2002 season Buddies produced the largest production in its history with Kelly Thornton's Peep Show (designed by Steve Lucas and Sherri Hay, with lighting by Michael Kruse), and also received eight Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations for da da kamera's production of In on It by Daniel MacIvor as well as Damien Atkins' Real Live Girl, the latter of which won in the categories of Outstanding Male Performance and Outstanding New Musical.
During the 2002–2003 season Gwen Bartleman resigned as general manager. Jim LeFrancois stepped in to oversee operations as Buddies' producer in the spring of 2003. Shows presented that season included James Harkness' rural drama Homage and Stem (created by Greg MacArthur, Ruth Madoc-Jones, Erika Hennebury, and Clinton Walker), developed through Buddies' developmental programmes.
The 2002–2003 season also launched the late night series Tallulah's Cabaret, dubbed the Friday Superstar Series, featuring performers such as Sasha Van Bon Bon, Kitty Neptune, R. Kelly Clipperton, Pretty Porky and Pissed Off, Will Munro, Kids on TV, and Josh Schwebel. A highlight of the 25th Rhubarb! Festival included two works from a contingent of Czech artists.
2003–2006
In 2003–2004 Buddies celebrated its 25-year anniversary by programming its largest season ever and welcoming back key artists who helped shape the company over the years. Sky Gilbert returned to direct the season opener, his Play Murder (which starred Jason Cadieux, Marc Gushuliak, Ellen-Ray Hennessy, Ann Holloway, Jane Johanson, and Edward Roy), and artistic director David Oiye directed a re-mount of one of Gilbert's biggest hits, Suzie Goo: Private Secretary.
Moynan King returned as associate artist, and was instrumental in launching Hysteria: A Festival of Women. Moynan also joined forces with Franco Boni on The Retro Rhubarb! Festival, which featured new work and pieces from past incarnations of the festival. Hits of The Retro Rhubarb! Festival included Hope Thompson's Green and The Magic Key and Peter Lynch's Colourful Conversation. Damien Atkins' Real Live Girl returned, as did a remount of Brad Fraser's Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love from Crow's Theatre.
For 2004–2005, offered a season of theatrical works by Greg MacArthur (Snowman), Daniel MacIvor (da da kamera's Cul-de-sac), Mirha-Soleil Ross (Yapping out Loud), Marie Clements (Native Earth's The Unnatural and Accidental Women), Adam Bock (Theatrefront's Swimming in the Shallows), Darren O'Donnell (Mammalian Diving Reflex's Suicide-site Guide to the City), Ann Holloway (Kingstonia), Sky Gilbert (Cabaret Company's Rope Enough), and Judith Thompson (Volcano's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler).
Moynan also had great success with the second incarnation of Hysteria: A Festival of Women, which saw artists come to Buddies from as far as Sweden (The Lion Kings). Damien Atkin's Real Live Girl toured to London (The Grand Theatre) and Winnipeg (Manitoba Theatre Centre), and in June Cheap Queers returned to Buddies.
The company's 2005–2006 season included shows such as R. M. Vaughan's The Monster Trilogy, Marie Brassard's Jimmy, The Scandelles' remount run of Under the Mink, Salvatore Antonio's family drama In Gabriel's Kitchen, and Daniel MacIvor's A Beautiful View.
The company also workshopped a new play by artist d'bi young, and supported presentations of Edward Roy's The Golden Thug (Topological Theatre) and Sky Gilbert's Bad Acting Teachers and the workshop of Diane Flacks' new one-woman show Bear With Me (Nightwood Theatre). The company's Queer Youth Arts Programme brought youth into Buddies throughout the season, to learn about theatre, see shows and meet artists and to create their own performance for Pride Week.
2006–2007