Buddies in Bad Times

About

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre 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 its work that was unapologetically political, fiercely pro-sexual, and fundamentally anti-establishment. In 1983, Sue Golding joined the company as its founding Board President, a post which she held until 1995. Playing an instrumental role in shaping the direction of the organization, 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...

Buddies in Bad Times (BIBT) was established and incorporated in Toronto in 1979. Gilbert was the company's first artistic director. Sue Golding played a pivotal role as President from 1983 to 1995.

Buddies' inaugural production was a Gilbert play, Angels in Underwear. An anthology of Beat poetry, Angels starred Walsh as Jack Kerouac and 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 originally the expression of the close friendship that prevailed between Walsh and Gilbert 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 examples of the synthesis between so-called gay culture and modern theatre and has spawned the successful careers of dozens of Canadian actors, playwrights and directors.

In 1979, The Rhubarb! Festival was held for the first time.

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". Of all the companies involved in the venture, Buddies found an artistic and social connection to the work Nightwood theatre was doing and an alliance was formed that showed itself in six collaborative Rhubarb! Festivals.

By 1983 Buddies in Bad Times Theatre was receiving funding from four levels of government.

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. Opportunity without intervention was a growing ethos in how Sky Gilbert was building BIBT. Seed Shows such as 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: 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 at TWP (12 Alexander Street) in 1987. Tim Jones became general manager in 1988. By 1990 BIBT had been directly or indirectly nominated or presented with numerous and various cultural awards. 1990 marked the year that Sky Gilbert's Drag Queens in Outer Space hit the stages of Seattle and San Francisco.

BIBT was a company on the move that utilized venues within Toronto to create exciting hit shows. 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 was also integral in its support of smaller independent companies, such as Robin Fulford's Platform 9, Ed Roy's Topological Theatre and the newly formed 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 symbiotic 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.

In 1994 BIBT opened its first season at Alexander Street with Sky Gilbert 's ambitious More Divine.

The community support for the company was at an all-time high; Strange Sisters reached a new kind of notoriety, and an explosion of activity under one roof like the city of Toronto had never seen.

1994–1998 saw many exciting and challenging things happen for BIBT. Queerculture, 4-Play and Seed Shows were all laid to rest. Associate artists took on a larger role of shaping the subsidized work in the building and as a result there was tremendous 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, plus the 20th anniversary of Rhubarb! curated by festival director Franco Boni. RHUBARB-O-RAMA!, an anthology of works generated from twenty years of the Rhubarb! Festival, was published.

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 eye 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.