Buddies in Bad Times

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".

Although the company eventually achieved notoriety and success in the 1980s as a queer theatre company, it was not 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 articulated a vision 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’s Where is Kabuki? (1989), as well as the Sex Tours of the Church-Wellesley community hosted by Gilbert’s drag persona Jane.

Other companies founded at this time in Toronto included Nightwood Theatre and Necessary Angel.

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.

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