Buddies are in bad times, indeed, at the longest-running queer theatre on Turtle Island (North America). But according to current artistic director ted witzel, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“I have had my biggest personal growth as a human and artist when I’ve been in my deepest moments of crisis,” witzel says thoughtfully as we sit together on a park bench one balmy evening. “We have tried to see the massive challenges we have come into as an opportunity to optimize the organization and set this vital home for transgression and unpredictability up for a sustainable future.”
In 2020, when theatre companies across the country were having public discussions about institutional anti-Black racism, these conversations and conflicts had already been happening in the queer community for years. Nonetheless, the younger generation at Buddies felt unheard and excluded — especially trans and Black artists — while the older generation seemed to feel pushed out.
After the board of Buddies suddenly resigned in 2020 amidst claims of anti-Black racism and generational conflicts, witzel took the helm of the troubled theatre in 2023. witzel recognizes previous leadership and governance crises have ruptured trust with the artists, patrons and funders over the years. Healing will come with time, but for witzel, “rebuilding is the thing that feels the most accessible to me because there were many broken pieces to put together.”
witzel and the Buddies team went through the remnants of nearly 45 years of documents, supplies and institutional ethos, carefully considering what to keep and what to scrap. Looking at things with fresh and curious eyes, there was no obligation to hold onto things that didn’t have a purpose anymore.
witzel says numerous dumpsters and “27 drawers of filing cabinets” were carted away to make space for that rebuilding.
The core values of “community, excellence, difference,” witzel says, “at one point had been really radical. At this point, these could be Baskin Robbins’ fucking values. These could be the values of Mount Sinai Hospital.”
The once cutting-edge values have become ubiquitous, so witzel and Buddies’ artistic associate Erum Khan asked: “What is possible to do here? What does the city need from a queer theatre? And what do queers need from a queer theatre at this time?”
Eventually, they landed on “audacity, liberation and rigour” as the core guiding values today.
It’s with these updated values at the fore that witzel and Khan began programming the 2024-25 season. Initially, there was no intentional theme or central idea. “Erum and I, coming from such different generations, racial, cultural identities, gender perspectives,” witzel explained, were looking to compile work representing the many ways into queerness and the magic in that.
“So that’s where this ‘queerness is divine mystery’ tagline came from.”
The result is a season that begins with the dark Robert Zucco (written by Bernard-Marie Koltès, running from Sept. 15-Oct. 5), a story of the living from the eyes of the dead. From there, the season flows into themes of gender and spirituality with the Oraculum (Denim and Pythia, Dec. 1-15), and continues to showcase mainstay and emerging artists in the queer theatre arts space with works by Adam Paolozza, Caleigh Crow, Amanda Wilkin, Julie Phan, Gabriel Dharmoo, Augusto Bitter and Marikiscrycrycry.
The season, of course, includes the annual Next Stage (Oct.16–27) and Rhubarb (Feb. 13-23) festivals, an installation in the citywide art party Nuit Blanche (Oct. 5), as well as a new party-in-residence: New Ho Queen, a collective of artist and arts professionals bringing joy to the dancefloor. Buddies has also co-produced Vivek Shraya’s new podcast I Won’t Envy, launching this fall.
What separates Buddies from other theatre companies, according to witzel, is that it’s “an institution that is filled with and surrounded by longing and desire.” Unlike many other identities, queerness is something that crosses all cultures but isn’t an inherited lineage such as genetics, religions or spiritual practices handed down over millennia; instead, it’s often a branching-off point that comes from a deep desire. Buddies is a manifestation of that and witzel continues, “I think that’s like, one of the most beautiful things — is to have a theatre that is built around desire and an identity that is so concerned with intimacy.”
It’s going to take time to rebuild and foster trust in an institution where so many find community, chosen family and a space for a kind of authenticity that can’t always be found elsewhere. Many people are looking to Buddies with understandably high expectations.
And, for a theatre with a modest operating budget, witzel and the team are working to make Buddies a space where all queerness is welcome, no matter race or gender.
Like many queer and questioning folks in the city, I once found a home at Buddies. It was filled with magic and infinite possibility, the art was transgressive and powerful, the parties titillating. Over the years, the institution started feeling less defiant and dangerous, less magical. Buddies stopped capturing my imagination, and some of the people who need the institution the most have never been fortunate enough to find it to be a welcoming home. witzel has an uphill battle — he has plenty of expectations to manage and people to welcome.
After our evening on the bench, chatting about plans for the future, reverence for the past, and this current season, I feel a spark of excitement. Perhaps Buddies will become a contemporary version of that defiant, dangerous and exhilarating place I found all those years ago, a place of liberation for all queers.
This article appeared in the 2024 Oct/Nov issue.