Frontmezzjunkies reports: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre unveils a 48th season of provocative premieres, artistic development, nightlife, and live art.

By Ross

Some theatre seasons announce a collection of productions. Others announce a point of view. The newly unveiled 48th season at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, labeled “FLESH,” feels very much like the latter. Artistic Director ted witzel has assembled a year that places queer bodies, desires, politics, and creative expression firmly at its centre, while continuing the company’s long-standing commitment to artistic risk and the development of new work. Featuring Canadian and Toronto premieres, returning partnerships with leading theatre companies, a revitalized nightlife program, the return of Rhubarb!, and a refreshed Residency Program, the season presents Buddies not simply as a theatre venue, but as a creative ecosystem.

“Over forty-eight years, Buddies has built one of the deepest conversations about queer aesthetics that exists anywhere in the world,” says witzel. This season, he notes, shifts away from “the poetics of longing” and toward works rooted in queer flesh, appetite, desire, and the forces that seek to control or politicize them.

That focus can be seen throughout the three mainstage productions. The season opens with Robert O’Hara’s acclaimed dark comedy Bootycandy, presented in partnership with Obsidian Theatre Company and directed by Jay Northcott (Crow’s/Obsidian’s seven methods of killing kylie jenner). The Canadian premiere explores Black queer life through a series of interconnected stories examining power, privilege, family, and identity. In January, We Quit Theatre brings GLORY! to Buddies, a contemporary dance docu-drama and transfeminist fantasia that revisits the contradictions of the 1970s through an irreverent lens. The season’s final mainstage offering, DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER, or, The Nosferatu Principle, marks the Canadian premiere of a work by Berlin Theatre Prize winner Sivan Ben-Yishai. Directed by witzel (Buddies’ Roberto Zucco), the neo-gothic body horror examines alienation, desire, and survival in a late-capitalist landscape populated by the living and the undead alike.

Beyond the mainstage, Buddies is investing heavily in the future of queer creation. A new cohort of Residency artists will develop works in progress throughout the season, while audiences can look forward to workshops, previews, and opportunities to engage with projects still taking shape. The company is also placing renewed emphasis on Buddies Nightlife, positioning club events, community programming, and artistic gatherings as an essential part of its cultural identity.

The season also welcomes the return of signature events that have become central to the company’s identity, including ArtAttack!, the Toronto Burlesque Festival, and the 48th edition of Rhubarb!, Canada’s longest-running genre-bending live arts festival. Partner presentations continue with productions such as Dimanche à Sodome, a French-language adaptation of Jordan Tannahill’s work that reimagines the story of Lot’s wife through a feminist lens.

What emerges from the announcement is a vision of Buddies that extends well beyond the walls of a traditional theatre. Whether through premieres, festivals, residencies, nightlife, or community gatherings, the season embraces the idea that queer culture is something continually created, challenged, celebrated, and shared. It is a season built around artists taking risks, audiences gathering together, and futures still waiting to be imagined.

The complete 2026-27 season lineup follows below:

BOOTYCANDY

A Buddies in Bad Times and Obsidian Theatre Company production

Written by Robert O’Hara
Directed by Jay Northcott

September 30 – October 17, 2026 | Opens October 1

The durational comedy of parental hypocrisy. A reverend in high heels. A formal lesbian breakup at a tropical destination. 

The THEYHEARD folks are trying to start new rumours, but fortunately, we’ve got a lot of witnesses. Bootycandy shows us a young man’s experience of power, permissibility, and privilege from the childhood dinner table to the playwrights’ circle to the dark disarray of a stranger’s hotel room. Robert O’Hara’s meta-theatrical, semi-autobiographical dark comedy fleshes out an intricate embodiment of Black queer life. 

LAMBDA Literary Award-winner (2015). Canadian premiere.

GLORY!

A We Quit Theatre production presented by Buddies in Bad Times

Co-created by Emma Beech, Dhanu Chinniah, Arne MacPherson, Gislina Patterson, and Dasha Plett

Directed by Gislina Patterson
January 20 – 23, 2027 | Opens January 20

A contemporary dance docu-drama. A love letter to our enemies. A transfeminist fantasia. A bad idea and a good time. Come into the mansion. Nothing bad could possibly happen.

Join Shel Silverstein, Gloria Steinem, Hugh Hefner, and various prey animals in the labyrinthine Playboy mansion to explore party planning, 70’s idealism, and the neo-liberal melodrama of the trans scapegoat via popular children’s music.

In We Quit Theatre’s signature mix of delight and iconoclasm, GLORY! mines the political, aesthetic, and libidinal contradictions of the ‘70s to grapple with our present moment of crisis. A foil to second-wave feminism and a deep throated scream for trans aliveness, GLORY! is a party you don’t want to miss.

This production is part of the Queer Voices Canada series supported by Canadian Heritage.
Toronto premiere.

DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER, or, The Nosferatu Principle

A Buddies in Bad Times production in association with Modern Times Stage Company
March 10 – 27, 2027 | Opens March 11

Written by Sivan Ben-Yishai 

Directed by ted witzel

A real estate agent sells soulless mansions to rich heterosexuals, purging the public of dark corners while pursuing his own oblivion on the apps, kept awake by an ensemble of the undead. A writer stares into the void of her laptop, resisting the temptation to google her symptoms, wondering if sickness will save her. Somewhere else, someone gets on the back of a motorbike they shouldn’t ride and wonders what they wouldn’t give for a hundred euros. 

They’ll make you think you’re the only pervert around if you don’t stay vigilant. Stay awake. Keep yourself alive, if you must. What’s left of you.

DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER is an adrenaline-fuelled fever dream — a neo-gothic body horror for the vacancy of late capitalism. 

Canadian premiere.
Sivan Ben-Yishaiisone of the most important voices in modern German playwriting, and the first playwright writing in English to win the Berlin Theatre Prize (2023).

BUDDIES NIGHTLIFE
Buddies Nightlife stands apart in the Village as the rambunctious hub for underground queer culture built on quality programming, exceptional music curation, and core values of liberation, audacity, and artistic rigour.  Revitalized curation under Nightlife Programmer Rae Abunahla means SLUR club nights each Friday, weekend dance parties and weeknight community programming from guest producers – from quarterly line dancing and viewing parties and queer self-defense classes to fundraisers. At Buddies the party is political, the music is intentional, and gathering itself is resistance. Visit @buddies.nightlife on Instagram or buddiesinbadtimes.com/events for more nightlife news.

ARTATTACK!
November 5, 2026

One of Toronto’s best-loved and most outrageous art auctions, ArtAttack!, Buddies art party fundraiser extravaganza offers art aficionados and novices alike an exclusive chance to take home a work of art by over 60 visual artists. We know all those gurls are saying their art fundraisers are the best—but if you’ve ever been to Buddies you know we know how to throw a party. 

RHUBARB! 48: CROSSROADS
Festival Director Ludmylla Reis
February 17–20, 2027

A crossroads is an opportunity. A meeting of the path you’re choosing and the path you’re leaving behind. But at the crossroads — for a short period of time — they become one. A place where the traveller can stop, rest, sleep, or consult with the gods who live there. 

Then, once the heart makes its decision (as it always eventually does) the traveller can move forward and forget what’s left behind. 

Rhubarb! is back for its 48th year as Canada’s longest-running genre-bending festival of Live Art. Come for the raw, revelatory, and riotous. 

Se as encruzilhadas não existissem, a vida seria mais fácil. Mais fácil e tediosa, pois nada é mais importante do que as aventuras de aprender a escolher.

BUDDIES RESIDENCY PROGRAM

The Buddies Residency program supports queer artists and collectives in the delicious and arduous task of bringing new work to life. A playground for brazen creatives, it has nurtured ideas into award-winning performances for the Buddies mainstage and beyond.

Starting this year, a new cohort of Residency artists will begin developing work in the building. Workshop dates and exclusive sneak previews of works-in-progress are to be announced. 

Said Artistic Director ted witzel: “In our 47-year history, we’ve welcomed over one million people into our home in the heart of Toronto’s Church-Wellesley Village and premiered over 1,000 new works for the stage. As we invest in the future of queer creation on stage, this is a place where queer artists don’t need to explain themselves before they create, and where audiences experience art made for them, not just about them.”

The incoming 2026–27 Buddies Residency artists & their works in progress are: Yolanda Bonnell – The Eighth Fire Series; Amanda Cordner & David di Giovanni – NERO; Aria Evans – I Will Fall / All Else Fades; Erum Khan – CLEOPATRA; Jay Northcott – HEEL; Erin Shields – Gilgamesh; and Elizabeth Staples – Chez Moi.

PARTNER PRESENTATIONS

TORONTO BURLESQUE FEST

November 12 – 15, 2026

Toronto Burlesque Festival returns to Buddies after sold-out success last fall. TBF invites audiences into REVERIE, a world beyond the ordinary. An escape from the mundane.
A dream made flesh.
A gilded invitation to imagine something more.

Whether you’re a seasoned burlesque aficionado or a first-time attendee, this year’s festival offers a transportive journey through world-class burlesque, cabaret, and drag, featuring artists from Toronto, across Canada, and around the globe.

With four nights of dazzling, dreamlike entertainment, each performance invites you deeper into a realm of fantasy, glamour, rebellion, and transformation.

2026 Festival Headliners: Lou Lou la Duchesse de Rière (Montréal); Jeez Loueez (New Orleans / Chicago); and Jezebel Express (New York / Newfoundland); plus, a Burlesque Legend Headliner for the Sunday finale.

DIMANCHE À SODOME

April 8–10, 2027

A Les Écornifleuses Production, co-presented by Théâtre français de Toronto and Alliance Française de Toronto

Written by Jordan Tannahill, translated to French by Olivier Sylvestre

Directed by Jocelyn Pelletier

Next spring, Buddies will host TFT’s presentation of Dimanche à Sodome. In the Bible, she has no name — simply “Lot’s wife,” turned into a pillar of salt for daring to look back at her city in flames. In Sunday in Sodom, she reclaims her voice. Her name is Edith. And at last, she tells her side of the story.

Revisiting an ancient narrative through a feminist lens, acclaimed Canadian and internationally renowned playwright Jordan Tannahill — a two-time recipient of the Governor General’s Literary Award — delivers a powerful work that examines the cost of defiance, the violence of moral authority, and the power of a mother’s love, translated into French by Olivier Sylvestre.

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is the world’s largest and longest-running queer theatre. For 48 years, Buddies has carved out a sexy, disobedient edge in Toronto’s theatre scene and has been a world leader in amplifying queer voices and developing their stories for the stage. In its year-round theatre season, Buddies is a home for artistic risk—a place where emerging talent hone their radical visions, and where established artists to do the daring works other theatres might shy away from. Since 1979, Buddies has welcomed over one million audience members and premiered over 1,000 new works for the stage.