Buddies in Bad Times Theatre Announces 48th Season, Featuring Bootycandy and Glory!

Broadway + NYC

Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Off Broadway

Cabaret

Dance

Opera

Classical Music

Eastern

Central

Western

West End

WEST END

UK Regional

International

Canada

Australia / New Zealand

Europe

Asia

Latin America

Africa / Middle East

Entertainment

TV/Movies

Music

Ctrl + K to open · Esc to close

The Toronto company will also present Rhubarb! festival and new partnerships with Obsidian Theatre Company.

POPULAR

Get all the top news & discounts for Toronto & beyond.

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre has revealed its 48th season, featuring work from some of Canada's most imaginative playwrights and artists, partnerships with Obsidian Theatre Company, We Quit Theatre, and Modern Times Stage company, a refreshed Buddies Residency Program, the resurgence of Buddies Nightlife, and the 48th annual Rhubarb!-Canada's longest-running, genre-bending live arts festival. Season tickets are on sale now. Visit BuddiesInBadTimes.com to learn more.

Get all the top news & discounts for Toronto & beyond.

"Over our history, Buddies has built one of the deepest conversations about queer aesthetics that exists anywhere in the world. We sometimes take this for granted in Toronto, but it's rarer than we think. As the real bad times return, Buddies is both a beacon and centre of gravity for queer creativity.

This season takes a hard left from the poetics of longing toward all of our glorious queer FLESH. All these pieces are works that have been on my radar since I started at Buddies, and I've been waiting for the right partnerships to come together to bring them to life. These are carnal, hungry, pulsing, sexy works about our appetites and how they are controlled and politicized, and the forces they can unleash.

This season also marks a shift in how we're thinking about Buddies as a whole ecosystem. First, with our artistic development programming: beyond the mainstage works, we're bringing in a new cohort of residency artists, who are creating the works that will fill our stages in the years to come, and we'll be sharing in-progress showings of these works throughout the year. And second, with the way we're making nightlife a core element of our creative identity, not just our business model: we are generating the next wave of queer culture not just on our stages, but in the DJ booth, on the dance floor, and in the dark corners where every future is possible if you both want it hard enough." - Ted Witzel , Artistic Director, Buddies in Bad Times

THE SEASON

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.

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 - 24, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Videos

Toronto SHOWS

Recommended For You

Sign up for announcements, and exclusive discounts on tickets to your favorite shows!

© 2026 - Copyright Wisdom Digital Media , all rights reserved. Privacy Policy

_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/toronto/article/BOOTYCANDY-GLORY-and-More-Set-for-Buddies-in-Bad-Times-Theatre-48th-Season-20260602)._