Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Canada’s longest-running new works festival returns for its 38th year! For two weeks, the Rhubarb Festival transforms Buddies into a hotbed of experimentation, exploring new possibilities in theatre, dance, comedy, music, and performance art. Rhubarb is the place to experience the most adventurous ideas in performance and catch your favourite artists venturing into uncharted territory.
This year, we are pleased to announce that Heritage Canada is returning as a Rhubarb funding partner, after funding was discontinued under the Harper government in 2013. We are grateful to the many community members who supported and advocated for Buddies and Rhubarb when this funding was cut.
On announcing the festival line-up, Rhubarb Festival Director Mel Hague comments, “This year the Rhubarb Festival is looking both forward and back – with two evening presentations devoted to looking at our past, and a full programme of some of the most cutting-edge new artists and works in Canada and beyond. This year Rhubarb invites you to Get Weird with us. With over 100 artists, 20 new works, and 7 special events, Rhubarb38 invites you to join us for performance that is bold, that is unapologetic, and that is always provocative.”
Festival highlights include:
•The Rhubarb Haunted House: a full-facility performance installation that brings back the ghosts of Rhubarb past, featuring David Bateman, Daniel Ellis, Virgilia Griffith, the Independent Aunties, Justin Manyfingers, Fay Slift, Brian Solomon, Trixie & Beever and Jacob Zimmer – co-curated by Mel Hague and Rhubarb alum Chad Dembski
• A performance by prolific New York-based performance artist, poet, and activist Staceyann Chin in partnership with FADO’s Monomyths series
•Rhubarb Does Movie Night: a one-night collaboration between Rhubarb, Inside Out and Images Festival featuring queer film and video
•A new show about a time travelling treadmill from NYC/Toronto-based performance duo AnimalParts
•A Toronto edition of Reginald Edmund’s Black Lives, Black Words, featuring new short works by local Black playwrights – in partnership with Obsidian Theatre and the National Arts Centre
•Dur à Cuire, a new show by Scotty Dont that blends acrobatics, dance, and knife-throwing to explore the weight and absurdity of gender and racial norms
•A new work by BAMBITCHELL juxtaposing the 15th century trial of an egg-laying rooster with images of drag queens and other pop culture references
•A brand new sketch comedy piece by Toronto's Indigenous women's stand-up comedy collective, Manifest Destiny’s Child
•New short works from Jivesh Parasram, Gitanjali Lena, Gein Wong, Sonny Mills, Izad Etemadi, JP Faienza, Open Fortress, and more
A STAGE FOR QUEER ARTISTS
For years, Buddies and Rhubarb have nurtured queer artists and their work. The 38th Rhubarb Festival continues this tradition, with projects led by queer artists such as Bambitchell, lo bil, Staceyann Chin, Scotty Dont, Izad Etemadi, Claren Grosz, Anthony Johnston, Gitanjali Lena, Sonny Mills, Keshia Palm, Patrick Salvani, Anais West, and Gein Wong.
Buddies’ Emerging Creators Unit also continues to showcase the voices of emerging queer talents, this year featuring the work of Bilal Baig, Teiya Kasahara, François Macdonald, and Sofia Rodriguez, led by ECU director Sunny Drake and company dramaturg Mel Hague.
This year’s festival also features a work-in-progress presentation of The Youth / Elders Project, a year-long community arts project led by Evalyn Parry, Vanessa Dunn, and LeeLee Davis that brings together a group of queer youth and elders to investigate the queer histories of our communities. This project has been in development since September 2016 in partnership with The 519 and Senior Pride Network, and will premiere on the Buddies main stage in May 2017.
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre presents
THE 38th RHUBARB FESTIVAL
Festival Director Mel Hague
February 15-26, 2017
TICKETS:
Wed-Sun - $20 Evening/Day Pass
Emerging Creators Unit Presentations - PWYC
Rush Ticket Policy - PWYC (limited to 10 tickets per day every Thurs-Sun, max 2 per person)
Box Office 416-975-8555 or buddiesinbadtimes.com/rhubarb
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander Street, Toronto ON
Photo: Staceyann Chin.
2017-01-12
Toronto: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre announces programming for the 38th Rhubarb Festival