THE RHUBARB ARCHIVE

Festival director Clayton Lee, curatorial collective Van Lisa, Theresa Cutknife, Claudia Edwards, Clayton Lee + Victoria Mata

Eat Me

A womxn indulges in her endless taste for cake and capitalism. Come hungry: it’s gonna be nasty.
Desirée Leverenz / the conceiver and the body

The Parasite

Using mask, burlesque, fringe, pompoms, and more, two performers delve into what it means for their queer bodies to create, gestate, and nurture.
Jay Northcott + Alisha Van Wieren / creators + performers

Scary Stories People of Colour Tell in the Dark

Through the lenses of drag and the Black, Latinx and Asian diasporas, this reimagining of a classic horror anthology asks how the things that scare us can bring us closer to our memories, our bodies, and each other.
Patrick Salvani/Ms Nookie Galore, Kamika Peters/Ursula Babb Galore + Franny Galore / creators + performers
Saul Garcia Lopez, Kumari Giles, Khary Mathurin + Shirina Quereshi / collaborators

Pouin

A story (like all stories) to help guide us through an irrational world and point us toward home, Pouin delves into the urban, the rural, and a sense of unbelonging.
Smith Purdy / writer
Elwood Jimmy / director
Emma Smith / producer
Ashley Bomberry, Jamais Da Costa, jes sachse, Ty Sloane / performers

ritual [moment]um

A dancer and a musician combine forces to explore and unravel the legacies they’ve inherited – deciding what to hold onto, and when to let go in order to heal.
Rajna Swaminathan / musician
Nyda Kwasowsky / dance artist

Sometimes

Uncouth, uncensored and, possibly undressed – Ursula Martinez gets personal, political, and philosophical in this soul-baring solo performance that blends spoken word, performance art, and stand-up comedy.
Ursula Martinez / artist

a few movements

Working its way back from middle age to a time of certainties, when summer nights carried the promise of an entire future, this piece deals in memories of space, city squares, cupboards, steep coastal roads, windows, rooms without walls.
Francesco Gagliardi / artist + creator

Panel Show

Starring celebrities drawn from the audience, Panel Show will interrogate the important question of our time: Are you queer enough?
Moe Angelos / Artist

Are You Still Watching?

After a lifetime of over-sharing herself online and in her art practice, Thirza Cuthand wonders whether she’s scaring away potential partners.
Thirza Cuthand / writer, director + performer

Lao Thai

This is how it begins. The Kong family transports their kitchen into the Chamber for a durational food-based performance. Audience members are welcome to come (and go) at any time during the performance, and are invited to cook, eat, and clean alongside the Kong family.
Lits Kong, Tim Kong, Jailong Kong, Jadalynn Kong  + Hazira Khalek

Practicing listening to the subterranean murmurs

It’s low rumbling unruly states and navigating control – what is done and doing to you, to us, to me, for us, for you, for me. A performance interrogating thresholds, intimacy, and spectacle, on micro and macro levels.
Last Yearz Interesting Negro / concept, choreography, performance + text
Josh Anio Grigg / sound design

Immortal Bodies

Contemporary ballroom performance meets the timeless stories and figures of Greek antiquity, brought to you by the House of Constantine and friends.
JoJo Constantine / curator + performer
Father Dutch Constantine (voice only), Founder Danger Constantine, Mother Kida Constantine, TD Constantine, Legacy Constantine, Tonne Pink Lady, Jimmy 007, Zakiya Constantine / performers

Wiigwaasaatig

A confluence of words, sound, and memory — the poetry of Arielle Twist is paired with Ziibiwan’s tension-filled soundscapes.
Arielle Twist + Ziibiwan / creators + performers

Spiral Life

A young Deaf woman faces communication barriers, rejection, and her own mortality as she visits her mother in hospice. Performed in ASL with English interpretation.
Tamyka Bullen/ performer
Alex Bulmer / dramaturg + co-director
Chelsea Dab-Hilke / co-director

Trans Gemmes 2.0

Six trans women of colour are ready to fuck you up with their realness: it’s a girls’ night out gone wild complete with pillow fights, dancing, burger-eating and a nosy step-father.
Gabe Maharjan, Leon Tsai, Mars Alexander, Nikki, Scarlett, X / performers + creators
Bilal Baig / director
The AMY Project / producer

Toxic People

Jilted X takes the audience through an exorcism ritual to show us just how easy it is to rid ourselves of toxic energy and turn that frown upside down.
Tiffany Paige + Esther Splett / creators + performers

To All My Past, Present, and Future Lovers… I’m Sorry

Nickeshia Garrick lays it all bare and offers up an apology for herself in this solo dance theatre piece.
Nickeshia Garrick / choreographer, writer, director + performer
Kevin Ormsby / mentor

mientras tanto // 缺口

Two queer women of colour grapple with the politics of their love and intimacy. A physical theatre piece set in and around their bed.
Sofia Rodriguez + Liz Der / creators + performers

What’s Done Must Come

Music, movement, and poetry collide at a dinner party. Delving into the sacred, the profane, and the prophetic, Buddies resident artists We Other Sons collective explore what sex and shame mean for them as queer men of colour.
Daniel Jelani Ellis / co-creator + director
Omar David Rivero / co-creator + sound designer
Daniel Antonio, Micha Edwards, David Lewis-Peart + Roel Torres / co-creators

Queer Church Cabaret

From poetry and experimental music to choreographed numbers, a group of artists collectively conjures a vision of a queer church.
Boiband the Boyband (Monica Garrido, Lucia Linares Leon + Heath V. Salazar), Soft Honey, Tigerwing, Sofia Fly + Pickles Lavey

FRIDA

Violeta Luna channels Frida Kahlo as a manifestation of the women who question and push beyond the status quo, inviting the audience to witness or take part.
Violeta Luna / performer
David Molina / music
Roberto Varea / video

Art Party

A queer-art-party-performance cabaret celebrating madness, sex, intimacy, and the grotesque through sound-art, dance, and performance.
Jord Camp, Brock Hessel, Mich Cota, Steff Juniper, R. Flex, Kenton Smith + Yovska

My Last American Dollar:

Round 1. Tricking and Flipping Coins: Making Dollars Hit,
Round 2. Black Angels in the Infield: Dripping Faggot Sweat,
Round 3. Whatchu Gonna Do: Marvelous like Marva
Locker rooms, strip clubs, waiting rooms, church pews, field days. My Last American Dollar celebrates and ruminates on the forms in which black and brown people hold space for each other: to resist, to slow down, to delight, and to survive.
Keijaun Thomas / artist

Audience Handbook

In 2012, Cara Spooner created the first iteration of Audience Handbook. For this year’s festival, 30 artists from across the country have made their own.
Cara Spooner / lead artist
Anonymous, Mikiki, Christina Battle, Freya Björg Olafson with Penny Olafson, Franco Boni, Erin Brubacher, Michael Caldwell, Naomi Campbell, Daniel Carter, Claudia Edwards, Jenn Goodwin, Mel Hague, Erika Hennebury, Rosina Kazi, Erum Khan, James Knott, Serena Lee, Clayton Lee, Victoria Mata, Evalyn Parry, Rui Pimenta, Kim Simon, Sajdeep Soomal, Adrien Whan + Patricia Wilson/ contributors

Untitled Bathroom intervention

A text-based intervention in the Buddies bathroom.
Kenneth Koo / artist

A Manifesto in Support of the Death of the Festival

A Manifesto in Support of the Death of the Festival is a manifesto in support of the death of the festival, appearing for the first time as a printed text, slapped on the house where Rhubarb lives.
Shannon Cochrane / artist
Lisa Kiss / designer

This year, Rhubarb proposed an alternative: the creation of a physical performative publication that attempts to capture the energy of Rhubarb and, perhaps, recreate the live performance experience itself.

Over 20 artists responded to the prompt to bring performances to the page, with some projects published in the festival publication itself, and other interventions performed on the book after printing.

PRESS

Canada’s oldest festival of new stage work has taken an unlikely pandemic pivot: it’s become a book – Peter Knegt, CBC Arts

A Risk on Paper: Re-writing Theatre at Home – Mae Smith, Intermission Magazine

Festival Director
Clayton Lee

Contributing artists
Cole Alvis
Natasha “Courage” Bacchus
Sue Balint
Renato Baldin
Seika Boye
Ishan Davé
Aria Evans
[ field ] happy/accidents
Ashanti Harris
Red Hauser
Nicholas Herd
lallafral
Louise Liliefeldt
楊光奇 · Njo Kong Kie
Gaitrie Persaud-Dhunmoon
seeley quest
Mari “Dev” Ramsawakh
Rockwell Pasta
Frankie Swift
Ashleigh-Rae Thomas
Marshall Vielle
Ravyn Wngz

Design and layout by
Monnet Design

Illustrations by
Isabel Laínez
Erick M. Ramos
Samantha Slinn

Photo by Dahlia Katz

“What does it mean after a year such as this, to regenerate one’s practice? What have we left to deteriorate, and what do we use as fodder and fuel for new creation?”

– Design lead Andrea Shin Ling

In 2022, Rhubarb transformed once again under festival director Clayton Lee’s curation, with design lead Andrea Shin Ling creating Calculus of an infinite rot, part 1, a large-scale installation in the Chamber space that served as a site for artists to respond to, engage with, and leave their mark on.

PRESS

Designing Decay: Calculus of an Infinite Rot at the Rhubarb Festival, Toronto – Elsa Lam, Canadian Architect

Decay and Regeneration: Re-Framing the Rhubarb Festival – Chris Dupuis, Intermission Magazine

Four good things that have happened for theatre in Toronto – Karen Fricker, Toronto Star

Calculus of an infinite rot, part 1

A reflection on philosopher Reza Negarestani’s position that decay is not the marked absence of life or wholeness, but rather, the negotiation between shifting states of living and dying. Decay and regeneration are paired processes, where the entropy of one system is used for the organization of another. Through decay, the differentiation between humans, trees, insects, and microbes blurs. Parts of us become parts of them and vice versa. It is a process that is leaky, smelly, and messy.

Collected from fallen maple and spruce trees, 34 stumps have been processed to various levels of finish. Many of them were then inoculated with fungus and bacteria and left to incubate for a month. These objects are ‘in transit’, slowly morphing in visible and invisible ways and existing in an ecosystem, which temporarily includes the space of the theatre, that can make use of them in ways that humans cannot. But, most critically, these forms will continue to move through ever-changing states of rot, decay and regeneration long after the boundaries of time marked by the Rhubarb Festival dissolve.

lead artist Andrea Shin Ling
curator Clayton Lee
fabricators Leah Ataide + Nicholas Hoban
technical support Betty Poon + Anna Gregorczyk + Olga Chomiak + Natasha Christie-Holmes (Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto)
special thanks to Toronto Tree Removal + Ataide Family Farm + FADO Performance Art Centre + Jehoshua Sharma

Fragile Glim

A multi-form soundscape composition for degenerative piano, field recordings, improvisation, and spoken word, Fragile Glim questions the need for anthropocentric ideals of beauty and exploring unadorned-organic modes in musical performance.

neo-speculative artist Stanford Cheung
poet Alvin Wong

Land of the Living

In this work Louise plays with metaphors of a kind of parasite, disease, infection and decay both spiritually and physically in lieu of the times we have been and are currently living in. In most ways this performance has nothing to do with the Covid-19 Pandemic but mostly has to do with a part of our history as people while using elements of our current state.

artist Louise Liliefeldt

Working with Wood

Like the rest of nature, a tree is a responsive and creative body and should not be fixed simply in the realm of the material nor the sublime. In this durational performance, Johannes responds to the central festival installation, alongside a collection of tree remnants that he has come to know. Integrating movement, sound, and footage of nature, these recollections and contemplations will unfold as an honouring of the trees’ lives.

artist Johannes Zits

looking for a safe home

Artist claude wittmann, having found an (at least temporary) ending to his second months-long housing crisis in less than two years, has invited visual artist and writer Serena McCarroll to join him; Serena went through a similar eleven-month long crisis in 2021. Together, they will accept and receive the Rhubarb Festival frame as a paying container that can allow them, in some way, to ground nanobits of their internal decay and trauma, and if possible nourish a personal need of the moment.

artist claude wittmann

Rats of Woolpit

Splett and Ward play alien rats with yeast infections who harvest the mold from cupcakes and the mossy detritus from pop-psychology in this electronic and sensory performance.

created and performed by Brawk Ward + Esther Splett
outside eye David Bateman

Akin to the Hurricane

Continuing an iterative series that began in 2018, this impromptu sound performance utilizes the symbolic space of the hurricane to question ideas of sovereignty and belonging. This is an effort to exercise fugitivity as a point of agency, autonomy and potentiality.

artist Jesús Hilario-Reyes
collaborator Callum Magnum

Between Points A and B, there are infinite potential directions of movement: A Micro-Party!

In 1977, a golden record of the Sounds of Earth was shot to outer space on the Voyager spacecraft. Now in the so-called Anthropocene, as today’s artists and cultural programmers, we’ve gathered our own top picks. So come share space, while we spin our favourite records of protest & resistance. Entrance your eyes and nose with a steady stream of live-remixed film projections, and with our resident fungi. Time is a loop, time layers; together we will draw a space to decompose and recompose, to remix and regenerate.

concept and performance Claudia Edwards + Tram Nghiem

Matter/Matter + Memory

Generational duo Ruby Caldwell Kramer and Lara Kramer use curiosity and play to plunge into the flesh of remembrance and discovery, charting a living landscape of their relationship in this howl towards what is reimagined.

conceived and performed by Ruby Caldwell Kramer + Lara Kramer

Stumped: Conversation 3 at the End of Theatre

In conversation with the space and festival installation, Sarah Garton Stanley presents the third lecture in a series of five exchanges at the end of theatre, modelled off of the annual Massey Lectures.

performer and creator Sarah Garton Stanley
music and sound designer Richard Feren
dramaturg Nick Carpenter

MAPS

Meditating on kinship, gut memory, and our connections to place, Jessica Johns shares with the audience a process of framing dehydrated SCOBYs, beading significant places and trails onto the stretched canvases they create.

artist Jessica Johns

Phosphos

In a timeless space flooded with light, light artist Paul Chambers erects a permeable boundary between matter and emptiness, warmth and absence, sleep and wakefulness. As images come pouring in, and the setting subtly altered through delicate manipulations, this entrancing ceremony invites audience members to sharpen their gaze.

light artist Paul Chambers
soundscape composer Jesse Peter Ash

special thanks to Maxime Sauvage, Nathalie Banger, Chad Dembski, Lael Stellick

AFTER THE RESIDENCY

note: Two socially-engaged Rhubarb projects (one by Moe Angelos and one by Myung-Sun Kim) will occur at a later date dependent on COVID safety and restrictions. We will share updates as they’re available.

Photos by Henry Chan, Dahlia Katz (Stanford Cheung), and Gabriel Li (lead installation photo)

Festival Director Clayton Lee

Over the past three years, Rhubarb has been developing relationships with live art festivals around the world, with the intention of contextualizing local artistic practice within a larger, global performance ecology.

In 2023, the festival intentionally expanded its scope internationally, through a curatorial exchange with three live art festivals in Europe and the UK: Bastien Hippocrate through Les Urbaines (Lausanne, Switzerland); Laura Fisher through BUZZCUT (Glasgow, UK); and Publik Universal Frxnd (fka Richard John Jones) + Louwrien Wijers through FLAM (Amsterdam, Netherlands). This exchange followed appearances by Rhubarb artists at these same international festivals over the past year.

In addition, this year the Rhubarb Festival welcomed live art producers and curators from across Canada and beyond, with an industry initiative that included taking in performances, connecting with local and international curators and artists, as well as seeing highlights of Toronto’s artistic and performance ecology.

PRESS

Experimental theatre performers of the world unite for this year’s Rhubarb Festival – Peter Knegt, CBC Arts

Repertório N.2

Drawing on dissident and informal techniques of dance and self-defence, Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira experiment with ideas of violence and resistance, all the while embodying and activating visionary fantasies, futurities, and modes of remaining in the world.

artists Davi Pontes + Wallace Ferreira

What a peach could have been and might yet become: a conversation about artistic failure and excellence

In 2018, Henry makes a short film starring Julian, entitled What a Peach Is. While the project is rejected by almost every film festival that they apply to, the duo continue to extend the project’s life through sequels, exhibitions, and even a graphic novel. At Rhubarb, they dig into their ongoing commitment to this failed project, raising questions of success, collaboration, and comradery.

artists Henry Adam Svec + Julian Higuerey Núñez

FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace)

FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) is an installation for gallery spaces and an expanding, archive documenting the ongoing choreographic collaboration between artist Laura Fisher and seven sheets of copper metal.

Drawing parallels between the material properties of the sheet metal and the artist’s body which experiences chronic pain, the collaboration utilises body heat to create an intimate relationship of co-dependency. FORGED alludes to wider themes around illness, objectification, sexual agency, care, power and intimacy and the complicated relationship between these things that often exist for disabled people.

For Rhubarb they share elements of the archive re-imagined for a performance venue via the body of an absent performer, inviting audiences to engage with the work through a collective act of resting.

creator & performer Laura Fisher
dramaturg Thulani Rachia
costume designer Zephyr Liddell
cinematographer (Film) Lucas Chih-Peng Kao
audio description (R&D) Sky Su & Emma Jane McHenry 
movement research (R&D) Sarah Hopfinger 

Presented in partnership with BUZZCUT

Commissioned and supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from Dave Toole OBE Bursary Fund and Creative Scotland. Supported by Dance Base and The Work Room’s residency programme.

The copper used in FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) is responsibly sourced European copper, re-purposed from industrial waste and manufacturing by-product. The artist is sensitive to the historic and present environmental and colonial impacts of copper mining and commits to working sustainably and respectfully with materials in their practice.

Super Queer Social

In channeling our super power of queer desire, SQS v.2 (Super Queer Social) is a gathering over food that explores the meaning of what horizontal lineage and queer heirlooms could be. Each item on the menu and each story offered will evoke the magic of a shared meal to bring forth connection, sustenance, and care. The first iteration of SQS (Super Queer Supper) was a collaboration between Lisa Myers and Myung-Sun Kim in 2018.

artists Myung-Sun Kim, Jody Chan + Ness Lee

Not Yet

A poetic meditation on the death of the artist and an exploration of intergenerational friendship, Not Yet uses textual artworks by Wijers in combination with the Frxnd’s spoken word to punctuate moments in time and evoke past conversations about the future.

artists Publik Universal Frxnd + Louwrien Wijers

Presented in partnership with FLAM, and made possible with the support of the Mondriaan Fund.

Chocolate Betty Crocker Fudge Goddess

Who’s in your bed this morning? Italians? Caribbeans? How do you take your coffee? Black? Or with a little bit of milk? Do you prefer white meat or dark meat? In this messy and deliciously interactive burlesque performance, Mars Alexander is the main course—a decadent cake to feast your eyes on and devour.

artist Mars Alexander
cake designers Anna Randall + Claire Geddes Bailey

I Still Like You

KINUK, the collaborative duo of Ursula Johnson and Angella Parsons, invites the audience to witness I Still Like You a dialogue on perspectives of bodies sharing common space and time, queerness and cross-cultural (Indigenous/settler) relations contextualised within their interpersonal relationship.

artists Ursula Johnson + Angella Parsons

Chance Variations

What does it mean to be affected by chance? In its use of AI to generate visuals based on pre-recorded actions, Chance Variations might be considered a performance of a performance of a performance, developed using a variety of propositions that allow for coincidence.

artist Simla Civelek
digital artist Zhino Yousefi

LoveLettersOrNot

A performance experiment using the audience as a scenographic social constellation, this work of autofiction examines the impact of intrafamilial sexual violence on its victims, collateral victims, and perpetrators. LoveLettersOrNot looks at how silence is created, who it serves, and how to move towards healing.

artist Bastien Hippocrate
dramaturge Selima Chibout

Presented in partnership with Les Urbaines

Jason

This solo movement piece tackles themes of transformation, pain, and the body, with Celia Green’s emotion-driven choreography inspired by a custom suit by Madeleine LeBlanc.

artists Celia Green + Madeleine LeBlanc

Come Hell or High Femmes: The Era of the Dolls

In this three-part film and multimedia performance, Keioui Keijaun Thomas charts a post-apocalyptic geography, imagining a time after mass extinction, when dolls (trans femmes so flawless they’re no longer considered real) are the only ones left. With choreography based on queering landscapes, camouflage, and metamorphosis, the piece moves through sound, light, poetry, and dance to reclaim what it means to be Black and queer in nature.

artist Keioui Keijaun Thomas

Guzzle ‘n’ Puzzle

Throughout the festival in the Cabaret

Join Moe Angelos in her caftan at the Rachel Hauck-designed Puzzle Lounge! Grab a guzzle from the bar and enjoy some queer eye-hand coordination development! Throw in a few pieces or commit to a full day of jigsaw with one of over 400 puzzles from the archive of the artist Melissa Levin (1958-2015), courtesy of her estate and Nina Levitt.

puzzle chaser Moe Angelos
environmental designer Rachel Hauck 
Lesbian Ancestor Melissa Levin

PRESENTED AT THE BUZZCUT FESTIVAL: No Self, No Problem!

photo by Julia Bauer

A surreal performance lecture given by a holy fool. Zigzagging through Western and Eastern philosophy from modern to ancient times, individual, social, and material relations are cross-examined, whilst a series of states become altered with time.

artist Claudia Edwards

The curatorial network and industry series are made possible through the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts. The Adam Mickiewicz Institute is supporting the participation of one industry series member.

ABOUT THE CURATORIAL NETWORK PARTNERS

//BUZZCUT//

//BUZZCUT// is a organisation dedicated to creating exciting, supportive environments for artists and audiences to experiment with live performance. From its beginnings in 2012, //BUZZCUTT// is now an internationally recognised organisation supporting radical performance practises from all over the world, holding annual festivals of Live Art, year-round artist development opportunities and their monthly performance programme Double Thrills.

FLAM

FLAM, Festival of Live Art Amsterdam was founded in 2011 by artists Rose Akras and Dirk-Jan Jager. FLAM was the first recurrent festival happening in gallery spaces in the Netherlands,  dedicated to live art as a genre  which is not tied to a discipline or conventional relations of duration,  public and space.

Les Urbaines

Taking place in various locations in Lausanne, Renens and Chavannes, Les Urbaines festival creates a vibrant time-space dedicated to emerging arts: a place that seeks to capture the moment when singular practices take shape and prefigure the aesthetics of tomorrow. The festival is entirely free of charge and brings together over forty projects (visual works, live shows, DJ sets, performances, workshops).

Festival Credits

Clayton Lee // festival director
Sue Balint // industry series concierge
Dylan Tate-Howarth // festival coordinator
Rach Shaen // festival lighting designer
Amber Pattison // head technician – running crew
Kit Norman // head technician – operator
Theo Belc, Luke Dobson, El Patey, Diamond Srey,
Katherine Teed-Arthur + Van Ward // crew

THANK YOU
Rose Akras, Navid Amini and The Theatre Centre, Marcio Beauclair, Shannon Cochrane, Julie Dabrusin, Jess Dobkin, Marci Ien, Luzminda Longkines, Cedric Ortiz, J.T. Pickering, Ysaline Rochat, Paul Smith, Karl Taylor, Tracy Tidgwell, William Zapata

Photos by Henry Chan.

Back for its 45th year, Rhubarb transforms Buddies into a hotbed of experimentation, with artists challenging our notions of what art-making and art-watching can be. As Canada’s longest-running new works festival, Rhubarb is the place to encounter the most adventurous ideas in performance and to catch familiar and unfamiliar artists venturing into uncharted territory.

This year’s festival continues to push boundaries with a curated selection of one-of-a-kind presentations. Curated by an Artist Committee including daniel jelani ellis (Obsidian Theatre), Leelee Oluwatyosi Eko Davis (TO Love-In), Ludmylla Reis (Buddies in Bad Times), and Jordan Campbell [STARLIGHT] (xLq, SummerWorks), under the leadership of Rhubarb Artistic Producer Sue Balint, this year’s festival promises to be a celebration of experimentation and queer audacity in the true spirit of Buddies.

Photography by Henry Chan

Mami

Drawing inspiration from Victoria Santa Cruz’s spoken word poem, Me Gritaron Negra!, this solo performance delves into intergenerational curses between mothers and daughters.

isi bhakhomen // Writer + performer
desirée leverenz // Director
Kalale Dalton-Lutale // Dramaturg
Alejandra Nuñez // Sound Designer
Mathew Robert-Nuñez // Assistant Sound Designer

What if Hansel Consented to Being Baked Alive

What are the implications when we consent to intimacy we don’t enjoy, when we are motivated by facets other than pleasure, such as money, or simple curiosity? Delving into perverse narratives combined with fairytale motifs, Michael Martini constructs a performance hybridizing text and scenography, while working with the through-line of a single prop: his own oven.

Created and performed by Michael Martini

With creation support from Playwrights Workshop Montreal

Find Your Rhythm

Find Your Rhythm is a multidisciplinary work that incorporates original music, contemporary dance, text and delves into the Akashic Records. Nickeshia Garrick invites the audience into a sea of dyed pages, asking: why are you here?; what matters to you most?; who is writing your story?; and are you finding your rhythm?

Nickeshia Garrick  // Creator, Composer, Performer
Michael Mortley // Costume Designer

Rock Bottom

reaching rock bottom, what
does it do to the body?

thinking the movement by and from
the butt, this performance

invites the audience to ex-
plore the depth of their

interiority. A desire to tell one-
self through humiliation,

to make the bottom of the barrel
a space of connection.

a movement performance

that forms an intestine
with the gut feelings of

Emile Pineault and
Gabriel Cholette

Emile Pineault // Choreography and performance
Gabriel Cholette // Text and dramaturgy
Nien Tzu Weng // Lighting design
Simon Grenier-Poirier // Sound design
Timothy Thomasson // Video design
Katie Ward, Winnie Ho // Outside hearts
Raed Moussa // Olfactory design
Darah Miah // Technical direction
François Bouvier // Production assistance
Fabien Marcil // Development Support

Creative Residencies: Salon58, Agora de la danse, Arts Printing House (LT), MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels), LA SERRE – arts vivants, Parbleux.

With the support of: Conseil des arts du Canada, Conseil des arts de Montréal, MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels)

BE VARDŲ BE KOJŲ

Be Vardų, Be Kojų (Without Names, Without Legs) is an ongoing investigation of queer futures in the Lithuanian folk dance tradition. This iteration is realized as a performative, interactive projection. Translating human movement through live motion capture with glitched photograms made from 3D scanning dancers, this piece imagines and creates space for queerness in both folk dance tradition and Lithuanian culture.

By Brigita Gedgaudas

Die Phantasie

Die Phantasie is a poetic dreamscape odyssey into the heart of a poet wandering through the hedonistic liberation of Berlin. But their world is torn inside out when their brother dies in Toronto and they sink into the centre of the earth. An offbeat, sad, strange, and hilarious piece that breaks and reforms every time it is performed, Die Phantasie is a fool’s journey filled with unbridled sexuality and immense grief. Enter the Portal.

Stephen Jackman-Torkoff  // Creator/Performer
Johnny Spence // Musician

Some While Watch Must Some Must Sleep

What would happen if our ‘waking selves’ and ‘sleeping selves’ met, conversed, and maybe even healed? This digital/analogue performance by sleeptalker Tanya Marquardt tells the story of how they discovered a ‘sleeping self’ named X through their iPhone—an eight year old, cup ½ full little creature walking around in their brain.

For Rhubarb, we are presenting a three-day ChatGPT version, where 50 participants email X a question before they sleep and wake to X’s response. On Feb 18 at 7pm EST, audiences are invited to a gathering of the participants, where we will share stories, reflections, dreams, experiences and images that we encountered during our three-day journey. Coder Ainsley Ellis and composer Omar Zubair perform an improvised sound score based on our live conversation, marking the end of our collective dream explorations. Registration is now closed for the digital experience.

Throughout the festival, a free installation in the Buddies Antechamber will offer a live experience, where videos and dream meditations inside textile enclosures invite participants to find their own ‘sleeping selves’.

Tanya Marquardt // Creator/Performer
Fay Nass // Director/Co-curator of Installation
Omar Zubair // Composer
David B Smith // Installation Design
Ainsley Ellis // Coding Designer/Dramaturge
Heidi Taylor // Dramaturge

Chez Moi

In this solo-performance love letter to the dyke bars of Toronto, Liz Staples pays homage to Chez Moi, a jazz-lounge-converted lesbian bar. Armed with a vocal loop pedal and synth beats, a young sapphic DJ hears echoes of lesbians through time, and celebrates the people who built the spaces she dances in.

Elizabeth Staples // Creator/Performer
Jessica Zepeda // Stage Manager
steph raposo // Lighting Designer
Yolanda Bonnell // Dramaturg
leZlie lee kam // Cultural Consultant

Special thanks to: Evalyn Parry, Jordan Campbell, Sam Staples

Supported by Nightwood Theatre and Factory Theatre through the Ontario Arts Council Recommender Grants

I Don’t Want to See or be Seen by Cis People

Photo by Tyler J. Sloane

THE WORKSHOP

Are you a cisgender person who wants to be a more active ally to Two Spirit, trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming (2STNBGN) people? Are you interested in exploring the limits of your embodied gender using a non-cisnormative framework? This workshop is about doing and taking seriously the unseen, theoretical labour 2STNBGN people often do in order to understand themselves. Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of western gender systems and how they fit into them, or not.

THE PERFORMANCE/T4T PARTY

I don’t want to see or be seen by cis people was a performance/T4T party focused on trans joy and futurity, desire and non-cis self expression. This space was intentionally created by and for members of the Two Spirit, trans, non-binary, and gender nonconforming (2STNBGN) community.

What would you do in the absence of a cisgender gaze? What would you wear? (Wear or bring your most euphoric outfit to change into!)  How would you move your body? (Dance like no one’s watching!)

Phase Colloid

Phase Colloid explores personal history, a sense of belonging to land, manufactured roots, and the transferring of traditional knowledge through tradition and ritual. This durational, multimedia performance evokes acts of physical labour in its movement, and takes inspiration from bards residing in a community setting in the South-Indian context.

Ranganathan Rajan // Creator and performer
Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy // Mentor
Andrzej Pietrewicz // Sound creative support
Geetha Rajan // vocal sounds.

Magic Theatre – (Scenes from the Unconscious)

Performer and choreographer Jian Yi expresses a deeply personal evocation of Queer/East Asian/ diasporic heartbreak. Drawing upon shamanic dance and integrated multimedia in a multi-sensory live performance, this aesthetically daring production explores what it means to grow up without a sense of belonging.

Jian Yi // Solo Performer/Choreographer
Dan Shay // Visual Media Production
Allan Whyte // Sound Production

Nude Parade (Work-in-Progress)

Think a live theatre version of the game of Operation – but make it trans. Combining traditional toy theatre with live feed video, live electronica, interactive “surgery,” and repurposed trash puppets, Nude Parade is a rejection of tokenization of queer stories that attempts to answer: am I more than the sum of my parts?

Created + performed by S.E. Grummett
Live Sound + Dramaturgy by Sam Kruger

Fragrance 0

WHAT LIVES THROUGH ME?????
WHAT IS MY BODY HOLDING????
WHAT IS IT EXPERIENCING???
WHO IS HOLDING ME??
WHAT IS HOLDING ME?

I EMBARK ON A VISUAL AND AUDIO EXPERIENCE INSPIRED BY IDEAS OF: LOOP, MIST, MOON, MEMORY

IM MESSY BUT SPECIFIC A NATURAL TECHNOLOGY

Roberto // Creator/performer
Omar // music friend
Siwar // sibling I have conversations with

Honey I’m Home

What’s a Hard Working Full-time Careerperson to do when her entire job is done by AI, but her body still has to show up to work? To combat her raging boredom, Janine uploads her consciousness into her home, literally. Slow wifi soon leads to a horrifying discovery in this physical theatre body horror mystery.

Created and performed by Lauren Gillis + Alaine Hutton

Thirst Nation: Chill

In an era where the dance floor is our medicines, bodies – hips – lips are our connection, and the extravagant expression of our art heralds in abundance. Thirst Nation brings forth a night-life experience like no other. Prioritizing IndigiQueer and 2 Spirit artists from here on Turtle Island or in neighbouring communities to the south, this night will be sure to leave you sweating and thirsty.

Tyler J Sloane/Tygr Willy // Creative Director
Kuya Atay // Stage Kitten
Yamari // DJ
Ziibiwan // DJ
Arrakiss // Performer – Burlesque
Madam Ode’miin Surprise // Performer – Burlesque
Nicole Joy Fraser // Performer – Drummer
Ravyn Wngz // Performer – Burlesque
Rhinestone Chickadee // Performer – Drag
Savage Moon // Performer – Burlesque
Sita Moon // Performer – Burlesque

Riley Kucheran, T’anchay Redvers, Alexi Pedneault, and Tyler J Sloane // Thirst Nation Collective

Künst Kids & Friends

Künst Kids: Judgement Day: Trial of the Century

Did you get your summons, Diva? Report to the Court of Künst for juror selection, because it’s the Trial of the Century! But is it art?! Prepare yourself for the Künst Kids’ unique brand of filth, sex, camp, glamour, and horror, hailing from Toronto’s weird and wonderful west end drag scene. Have fun figuring out who’s bringing what!

Featuring Kurt Cumstain, Full Blown Father, Kasper the Queer Ghost, T.S. Kunterpunt, and Ms. G.

Vridhhi Chaudhry

Prickly Paradigm

Embodying a cactus, Vridhhi Chaudhry explores gender fluidity and disrupts queer silence, inviting the audience to witness the complexity of the queer experience and engage with the nuances of their queer inner child.

Jan Jennings

Juicy

Through storytelling and burlesque, we are taken on an adventure with Stretch-Marks-The-Spot where celebrating yourself is yummier than waiting for others to celebrate you.

Written and performed by Jan a.k.a Stretch-Marks-The-Spot
Direction and sound design by Tsholo Khalema

Amateur Strip Night Judged by Drag Things

An event we are blessed to witness the flithest strip acts you can imagine from your local pervs. This includes you. Yes you! You can do a strip for a ridiculously supportive audience. The top winners receive cash prizes and hot glued trophies. Every performer receives cab fare + free admission for them & a friend + a drink ticket. What a time to be alive!

In terms of ‘strip’ – we are open to wide interpretation. Acts that adhere to the theme are given a leg up in judging, but you don’t have to limit yourself! The more ridiculous the better. All genders & orientations encouraged. It’s body-posi, queer-posi, all posi.

Young-in-Craft Cabaret

Cloud

C-Angel’s Cosmic Crash!

With C-Angel as the player and the audience as her collective controllers, C-Angel’s Cosmic Crash! takes us on an unforgettable live-action quest: a groovy space odyssey inspired by rhythm-action games like Space Channel 5, Rhythm Heaven, Project Diva, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and Elite Beat Agents.

Valentine Leger

The Book of Magdalene

This solo reimagines Mary Magdalene as a butch, and Jesus as transmasc, highlighting the longstanding solidarity and bonds that transcend traditional family structures and hetero-normative romantic partnerships.

Featuring Cass Iacovelli as Mary

Anthony (Ani) Palermo

SHE, MEN, AND THE GIANT F*CKING SNAKE

“She” is the Mythological Greek figure Tiresias. “She” is a Twink in The Village. “She” is a multi-dimensional space bitch on a mission to find who touched their tits. Anthony Palermo presents a theatrical pop rock song-cycle about gender identity and sexual assault in queer spaces.

Music, Lyrics, Text & Performed by Anthony Palermo

Sindi Pinari

A dream is also a phone call

Using poetry and recorded audio to dig into the emotional archives of familial relationships and guilt, Sindi Pinari evokes conversations with their grandmother, blending real-Albania of the past with a dream-Albania of the present.

Ashley T

Screaming for Care

Drawing on personal lived experience and historical research, this piece confronts the audience with the healthcare system’s neglect and abuse of Black women.

Evan Webb

***simulation 6000 “google image search: man in underwear man swimsuit man crotch”

In a sexual and melancholic duet with an office chair, Evan Webb challenges ‘timeless’ business attire, transcends gender, reclaims corporate queer liberation, and honours faer inner child.

By Evan Webb
Music by Wolfgang Gray

Dead Wrestlers

Writers, Directors, and Performers: Aurora Stewart de Pena and Nika Mistruzzi
Filmographer: Sofia Bohdanowicz
Performers: Cara Gee, Nicole Stamp, Rebecca Applebaum, Jolene DeVoe, Gwynneth Tossel, Donna Maloney, Julia Lederer and Liz Peterson

Dead Wrestlers charges triumphantly among the path separating two epic Wrestling Dynasties, the Lovers and The Von Spikehorns. Taking place sometime in the fog between 1975 and 1982, these two noble families will fight to the death for the title, shining with body grease, resplendent with sound effects and holding a grudge. Six Wrestlers. Three Belts. One Title. Brought to you by Birdtown and Swanville.

Week Two Opening Night Bash

Performer: Betty Burke

I’ve Got My Own Thing Going On

Performer: Chris Dupuis

Meet Chris Dupuis, Celebrity Artist! In 2007 Paris Hilton successfully trademarked her personal catch-phrase That’s Hot! with the US Patents office. Following Hilton’s lead, Dupuis has trademarked his own catch phrase I’ve Got My Own Thing Going On. Meet Dupuis and learn how to use this handy phrase in everyday conversation.

she (part 1 of the she raw now trilogy)

Writer and Performer: d’bi.young
Composer: prymtym


she is the first play in a new trilogy of biomyth-monodramas by d’bi.young entitled she raw now. A young black womban snew is enchanted with a pop icon. As her enchantment becomes obsession, what’s real is make-believe and lines of fantasy and reality are possibly permanently blurred.

Cordelia

Writers and Performers: David Tomlinson and Ryan Kelly
Director: Patrick Conner


Cordelia, you’re gone again. Cordelia, it’s gone wrong again. Cordelia…are you gonna make it okay?

Tender Buttons: Objects Play

Director: Devon Elke Sound
Designer: Matt Smith
Lighting Designer: Jonathan Adjemian
Set/Costume Designer: Nicole Neufeld
Performers: Liz Peterson and Lara Arabian

What can be known after memory and recognition are abolished? An encounter for two women. Taking place in the labyrinth and continuous present of nightmare. Stein’s great destructive composition provides an anchor for this theatrical queering of conventions and the conventional.

Sister Mary’s a Dyke?!

Writer and Performer: Flerida Pena

Abby didn’t think High School would be like this…

Tragic Magic

Writer and Performer: Glenn Maria
Choreographer: Bethany Elkin

One tranny’s dark, hilarious exploration of how we interact with our bodies and our past. Glenn’s new work combines text, dance, face masturbation, affirmations, body break ups, glitter, grit and a bathtub striptease, continuing his tradition of visual and theatrical daring.

Don’t Dream with the Lights on

Writers and Directors: Hanah Cheeseman and Rose Plotek
Co-Writers and Performers: Lindsey Clark, Susanna Fournier, Eleanor Hewlings, and Katie Swift

Well, basically we can’t help but communicate. It’s not something we have control over, we’re going to be communicating whether we want to or not. We can try and choose what we communicate and when, but we’re basically doing it all the time; even when we die, that’s like the ultimate communication. I’m not here.

Le Petit Mort

Writer and Director: Ian Mozdzen
Co-Writer and Performer: Mia van Leeuwen

Le Petit Mort was created with the financial assistance of The Winnipeg Arts Council. Le Petit Mort is based upon Georges Bataille’s short story The Dead Man (or Le Mort). Le Petit Mort… our sloppy spin on Georges Bataille. Raw expressionistic erotic…Mia wrestles with, a divinely filthy heroine – Marie – a widow who nakedly flings herself into snatchety snatches, poo poo, and doo doo… and she wrestles a dwarf, too.

The Future of Theatre

Writer and Performer: Jeremy Bailey

Jeremy Bailey will demonstrate innovative new software he has created specifically for the performing arts industry. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to witness the future of theatre.

Everything I’ve Got

Writer and Performer: Jess Dobkin
Director: Stephen Lawson
Production Manager: Laura Baxter
Production Designer: Sherri Hay
Sound Designer: Richard Feren
Lighting Designer: Laird MacDonald

Jess Dobkin’s newest performance art piece is a raw and intimate examination of creativity and mortality where the artist offers up the entirety of her collection of artistic ideas. With the urgency, vulnerability and humour that marks much of her work, she focuses attention on her own artistic practice and confronts her own temporality.

Headbangers
Writers and Directors: Jonathan Heppner and Sasha Kovacs
Co-Writers and Performers: Andrya Duff, Tina Fushell, Kat Sandler, and Rebecca Singh

Headbanger: A fan of heavy metal music. Headbanging: A dance that involves violently shaking the head in time with music, most commonly rock music and heavy metal music. Headbangers: A piece that finds the subversive in our everyday patterns of head-bobbing and head-butting through an unlikely groups’s descent into the world of metalheads and extreme hair.

Let Me Entertain You

Writer and Performer: Jonathan Schuster

Welcome to design guru Chip Peterson’s fabulous loft. The signature drink tonight is sangria and on the menu for the evening is love.

Moustaches & Lipstick

Writers: Jonathan Seinen and Lindsey Clark
Performer: Aubrey Laufer

Fusing live theatre and electronic music, Moustaches & Lipsticks explores rhythm, gender, love, communication, escape and sequins.

Insurgency
Writer and Director: Jordan Tannahill
Producer: Sarah Sherman
Composer: Katie Stelmanis
Performers: Melanie Barber, Simon Brand, Justine Kitteringham, Miya Strauss, and Liam Sullivan

Five pre-teen youth are brought to an abandoned suburb where they launch a rebel insurgency against an unknown enemy. In the post-cause generation, what is there left to die for?

Ouette
Writer and Performer: Karen Bernard

Is based on Francois Ozon movie Swimming Pool, parallels the story’s protagonist, an English novelist, who becomes involved in a dangerous sexual fantasy that is part fiction and part desire. Karen Bernard creates a heightened noir physical drama fractured by non-performative tasks of manipulating a laptop and projector.

The Keith Cole Experience

Performer: Keith Cole

Rhubarb Festival Kick Off Bash
Performer: Neal Medlyn
Performers: Lucas Silveira and Frostituition

The Neal Medlyn Experience

Performer: Neal Medlyn

A live, faithful re-enactment of Beyonce’s 2007 concert DVD The Beyonce Experience Live! featuring backup dancers, birthday cake, cameos by Destiny’s Child, and box fans to blow Neal’s hair. Presented to great acclaim and sold out crowds at the New Museum for Contemporary Art in New York as well as the TBA Festival in Portland Oregon, Austin’s Fusebox Festival, and will appear at the Warhol Museum in 2010.

Obeah Opera
Writer and Performer: Nicole Brooks
Performers: Amina Alfred, Abena Malika, Saidah Baba Talibah, Dana Phoenix, and Nicole Brooks

A piece that musically dabbles in the woes of womanhood and the mystical – hundreds of women are accused of being witches and bringing Obeah to a good Christian town. Meet five women in a holding room, waiting and sharing in their fate for what could be their last…

Week Three Opening Night Bash

Performer: Pony Da Look

Hunting!

Writer and Performer: Rae Spoon
Animator: Jessica MacCormack

Rae Spoon traces his journey from growing up in a pentecostal church in Calgary to touring as a transgendered country singer and beyond with music, stories and animations.

Stadium

Writer and Performer: Ryan G. Hinds
Composer: Edi
Choreographer: Renald Jean-Pierre
Costume Designer: Trish Fedora

Madonna had The Girlie show. Michael Jackson had Dangerous. Now, Ryan G Hinds enters the world of pop concerts via STADIUM, an original multi-media pop show with back-up dancers, glittering costume changes, and high energy routines that take you from the runway to the dance floor to outer space.

Factory

Writer: Shannon Blake
Director: Megan Watson
Performers: Sandi Ross and Dana Rogers

Dinah, a blind octogenarium, and Iris, her late-twenties friend and caregiver, sit in a pick-up truck facing the flooded remains of the factory where Dinah’s husband died 25 years ago. Together they consider sisters, bridesmaids, swimming, marriage, men and the vital question: Is that because you’re gay?

Speak
Writer and Performer: Tyson James

Some voices are never heard.

Teddy Chainsaw Massacre

Writers, Performers, and Costume Designers: Ulyssess Castellanos and Sherri Hay

Teddy Chainsaw Massacure is an adaptation of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, performed entirely with teddy bears. A collaboration between Sherri Hay and Ulysses Castellanos, Teddy Chainsaw Massacre take its cues from children’s shows such as Polka Dot Door, in which actors manipulate stuffed animals to enact a narrative.

Parole, Parole

Writer and Director: Zack Russell
Composer: Jonathan Adjemian
Production Manager and Stage Manager: Ruth Spencer
Costume Designer: Erin Freedman
Performers: Carmen Grant, Joanna Caplan, Lindy Zucker, Kate Siemiatycki, Alexandra Contreras, Sarah Murphy Dyson, and Molly Grundy

Welcome back. On tonight’s show: author Cesare Pavese, singer Rita Pavone, and a surprise mystery guest. Mystery guest, are you ready? Let’s play: Talk to me [Colloquio a Me airs daily at 5pm on RAI-English translation provided]

A Bee Sees
Writer and Performer: Zita Nyarady

Swarm the starting line, its a race to the sun.

Guns
Writer: Alex Napier
Director: Philip McKee
Performers: Hannah Cheesman and Liz Peterson

In a series of encounters between two women, Guns portrays a kind of science fiction wherein dinner party guests arrive armed, and handguns are plain as potato chips: so visible they’re nothing at all.

Stay Here, Don’t Go

Writers and Performers: Alicia Grant and Andrea Spaziani

Witness what happens when we go past the point of mental and physical exhaustion. Through a series of weirdo meditation techniques, rockstar ambitions and a willingness to be uncomfortable, dance artist Alicia Grant presents an endurance challenge for a constantly changing world.

Of A Monstrous Child: a gaga musical

Writer and Director: Alistair Newton
Choreographer: Sky Fairchild-Waller
Composer: Matt Dolmage
Burlesque Choreographer: Kaitlyn Regehr
Costume Designer: Marianne Jette
Video Designer: Alex Josselyn
Stage Manager: Charlotte Moffatt
Make-Up Designer: Stacey Laureyssens
Performers: Bruce Dow, Nick Green, Tyson James, Clinton Walker, Anthony MacPherson

Performance legend Leigh Bowrey hosts a musical exploration of one of our most enigmatic stars, Lady Gaga. Brought to you by Buddies in Bad Times resident company, Ecce Homo Theatre.

And then there were 4…

Writer and Performer: Anna Jane McIntyre

A mysterious and magical tale with a ghost, a monster, a ringmaster and a six-breasted shadow puppeteer named Ezili Sometimes. A spectacular presentation by Montreal’s multidisciplinary artist Anna Jane McIntyre, who fuses the languages of theatre, dance, circus and sculpture to create extraordinary characters.

And Sheep Are Scared…

Creators: MiMo (Samuel Morgenstein and Matt Miller) + iNSiDEaMiND (DJ Steptone and Professor Fingers)
Video Artist: Ben Chaisson

Utilizing an arsenal of common household objects, such as kitchen utensils, water toys, and other non-traditional instruments, MiMo and iNSiDEaMiND blend live improvisation with turntable artistry to create an audio soundscape that will challenge your notion of what defines music.

A Weekend in Alphaville
Writer and Director: Bruce LaBruce
Collaborators: Robin Poitras and Edward Poitras

A cinematic pas de deux between the organic and the mechanical, between the spirit and the flesh, between nature and culture, between the past and the future from queer icon Bruce LaBruce.

Detroit Time Machine

Writer and Performer: Detroit Time Machine
Director: Erin Brandenburg
Composers: Andrew Penner, Brian Poirier and Iner Souster
Instruments and Set Designer: Iner Souster
Visual Designer and Animator: Howie Shia
Costume Designer: Rachel Ford
Performers: Gordon Bolan, Alan Penner, Andrew Penner, Brian Poirier and Iner Soust

Called music for the undead to dance to, Detroit Time Machine melds original music, playable sculpture art and video imagery to explore the rise and fall of industrial Detroit. This piece brings together some of Canada’s top indie musicians with award-winning visual artists and the theatre makers to create an apocalyptic tribute to the era of mechanization and the future of the industrial world.

On Linvingston’s Method

Good Citizens Svec
Writer and Performer: Henry Adam Svec

Part concert, part lecture, On Livingston’s Method presents the findings of anthropologist Staunton Livingston who, in the late 1970s, captured a surprising series of fold songs from players in the Canadian Football League.

Dear Neighbour: Homecoming

Writer and Performer: Erin Brubacher

After 12 years away from Toronto, Erin is moving home.

time 2b fame us

Writers and Performers: Ian Mozdzen and Mia van Leeuwen
Dramaturge: John Turner
Special Guests: Marcel Balfour and Michel Saint Hilaire

Through an outlandish pastiche of stolen moments from Madonna and Tom Cruise, Winnipeg’s out of line theatre tears down beloved idols only to resurrect them for sacrilegious contemplation.

The Me Show

Creator and Performer: Kaleb Robertson
Photographer: Jennifer Rowsom
Choreographers: Kate Franklin and Kat Nimmo

Kaleb Robertson has been a gender warrior from a very young age, both on stage as a cabaret performer and in life. From self-parody to earnest self-revelation, The Me Show, plays with dance, drag, video and comedy to celebrate the multiplicity of selves that we perform over a lifetime.

RUN LIKE HELL (vagy menj a Pokolba)

Writers and Performers: Kevin Rees and Sean MacMahon

Returning to Toronto after a four year absence, conflicted optimists emergency exit perform an autopsy on a despondent world; a critique of the grand work of man by a team of highly qualified experts.

Godwin’s Law

Writer: Nicolas Billon
Director: Ravi Jain
Performer: Claire Calnan

In this darkly comedic monologue, one woman’s religious faith is put to the test after she is evicted from her apartment. A troubling portrait of the politics of our time, brought to you by the creators behind the SummerWorks hit Greenland.

Affirmation : A Sex Show in Six Movements

Writer and Performer: Olive-or-Oliver
Director: Evalyn Parry

Intersection Project

Writers and Performers: Priscilla Guy and Kate Nankervis

Intersection Project is led by dance artists Pricilla Guy and Kate Nankervis. The project aims to reinforce the presence of artists in the larger society through pedestrian and simple movement vocabulary in city landscapes performed by a large group of dancers. From Sept. 2010 to Jun. Intersection Project will occur in ten different urban locations in the city. Every month, Intersection collaborates with different performers, as well as different videographers and photographers to document the work, and posts it online in order to make it accessible to all sorts of audiences.

The Lovely Babe

Writer and Performer: Meg Gennings

Jesus Chrysler

Writer: Tara Beagan
Director: Michael Wheeler
Performers: Keith Barker, Margaret Evans, and Christine Horne

Banned by a Prime Minister! Meet Jim Watts: born into a life of wealth and privilege, and by the Great Depression a communist, activist, and theatre director, whose civil rights themed work was banned by order of a Prime Minister. Toronto’s beloved Praxis Theatre shines the light on this extraordinary historical character who defined virtually every social convention to become the most un-famous of significance in Canadian history.

Bravislovia
Writer, Director, Performaner: Jordan Tannahill
Cinematography/Video Design: Samuel Lebel-Wong
Set Design: Ben Carson, Rebecca Powell
Projection: William Christopher Ellis

Theatre wunderkind Jordan Tannahill reveals his ten-year old self with this intimate piece about the make-believe world he retreated into during his childhood. Through the use of live storytelling and film, Tannahill uncover the imaginary nation of Bravislovia, a fractured former Soviet republic on the Baltic Sea and its unsung hero, Isaac Nyakov, a fugitive poet who is resisting the tranny of Bravislovia’s oligarhic regime. A poetic and personal homage to the power of imagination.

Who Who Who’s Got a Crush on You? (A Slumber Party for Boys)

Writer and Performer: Johnnie Walker
Co-Writers and Performers: Morgan Norwich, Adam Bourret, Jordan Tannahill, Mark Shyzer, and Michael David Lorsch
Choreographer: Kendall Forde
Designers: Stephanie Avery and Nicole Bazuin
Stage Manager: Mark Aikman

Everyone’s invited to the best slumber party ever, featuring MASH notes, practice-kissing, Dream Phone, and all the other things we weren’t allowed to do when we were little boys. Put on your best PJs, and pull up a pillow while we call friends, get clues, and find out which guy really likes us.

How to Survive While in Exile

Writers and Performers: Coman Poon and Erica Mott
Performers: Philip Arima, Sandra Brrewster, Christina (Steen) Starr, Jeanette Cabral, and Brian Smith

How to Survive While in Exile is not plot-driven but it is structured as an experiential journey into and out of liminality. As a dance-theatre ritual, Exile deals with experiences of personal and metaphoric catastophe, im/migration and the borders and boundaries we each choose/are forced to cross.

Let’s Get It Together: Bridging the Great Divide

Hosted by Darren O’Donnell (Artistic Director, Mammalian Diving Reflex), with Emelie Chhangur (Assistant Director and Curator, Art Gallery of York University), Jonathan Goldsbie (Journalist, National Post & Spacing Magazine and Municipal Activist) and Jordan Tannahill (Artistic Director, Suburban Beast)

Toronto’s changing. Communities are divided. We need to get it together. Stemming from the shift to the right politically in our city and the outcome of the recent municipal election, this group discussion and think-tank will focus on bridging the divide between downtown and communities elsewhere. An opportunity for you to voice opinions, have conversation and brainstorm around what we can creatively do as concerned citizens.

Live Photo

Photographer and Performer: 2Fik

Working as both photographer and subject, single-handedly recreates de La Tour’s famous painting Cheat with the Aces of Clubs in front of an audience. Through a dazzling display of technology and performance, 2Fik transforms himself into the multiple characters that make up this Baroque masterpiece and digitally produces a replica of the painting.

Post-Living Ante-Action Theatre (PoLAAT)

Writer: My Barbarian (in collaboration with local artists)

Los Angeles-based art group My Barbarian will lead local artist-participants through workshops and a public performance of Post-Living Ante-Action Theatre, an original performance form developed by the company, which evolves from their own interdisciplinary practice as well as two avant-garde collectives of the 1960s: New York’s Living Theatre and Munich’s Action-Theatre. The performance will also draw on current events and political situations. This is the Canadian premiere following Post-Living Ante-Action Theatre projects in New York and Cairo.

Semitic Score

Writer and Performer: Oreet Ashery
Performer: 2Fik
Co-Presenter: FADO Performance Art Center

Semitic Score is a multidisciplinary performance that takes its roots from the notion that both Muslims and Jews come from the same Semitic DNA. Created in collaboration with British art star Oreet Ashery and accompanied by avant-garde world musician Debashis Sinha.

The Beauty Project: the male gaze
Devisers: (rAiz’n Ensemble) Jajube Mandiela, Maxine Marcellin, Tanya Pillay, Meghan Swaby, Navneet Rai and Malube Uhindu-Gingala
Directorial Outside Eye: Maxine Marcellin

Through the medium of devised theatre, an inter-generational group of six women openly share their thoughts and experiences around cult of beauty. A political and personal presentation by graduating members from the 2007-2010 rAiz’n Ensemble, b current’s 3-year Professional Training Program for emerging artists.

Toronto Show & Tell

Curator: Laura Nanni
Host: Chy Ryan Spain
Speakers: Atom Egoyan, Lex Vaughan, Franco Boni, William Ellis, Bojana Stancic, Victoria Hardie, Brendan Cormier, Alex Marques, Amelia Ehrhardt, Elley Ray Hennessy, Simon Rabyniuk and Patricia Wilson.

A curated Show & Tell featuring the ideas, objects and stories that make Toronto strange and special.

Airship
Femmes de Feu and Zirco Circus
Writer and Performer: Sabrina Pringle
Co-Writers and Performers: Holly Treddenick, James Fisher, Lara Ebata, Natalie Fullerton and Jonah Logan

Arial dance company Femmes de Feu join forces with visual artist and electronic musician Zirco Circus in this new Steampunk performance, celebrating early experiments in flight.

k[NO]w places

Writers and Performers: Helene Vosters, Marlene Mendonca, Saul Garcia, Tara Ostiguy, Beyhan Farhadi, Bradley High, Guillermo Galindo

Follow this group of artists as they perform innappropriately private actions in public spaces throughout the city for accidental audiences.

Please Copy Us Forever

Writer sand Performers: Amy Lam, Jon McCurley, Gwen Bieniara, Felix Kalmenson, Mark Connery, Adriana Disman, Adam Cowan, Charlie Murray, Xan Hawes, Simon Schlesinger, Mark Rainey, Chandler Levack, Claudia Whittman, Matt Smith, Glenn Macaulay, Daniel Vila, Zoe Gordini, Seth Scriver, Filip Anton, Jeremy Tracz, Zeesy Powers, Vanessa Rieger, Jamie Shannon, Jesjit Gill, Sari Lightman, Romy Lightman, Matt King, Christian Scriver, Nazarah Scriver, Patricia Scriver, Steph Davidson, Yuula Benivolski, Xenia Benivolski, Mark Roberts, Laura McCoy, Audree Juteau

Conceptual comedians Life of a Craphead and friends perform crazy advertisements inside the Yonge and Dundas 30-second scramble crossing. Over 20 characters promote themselves in the middle of the intersection every time the lights change.

The Centre for Sleep and Dream Studies

Writer and Performer: Richard Windeyer
Co-Writers and Performers: a.rawlings, Ciara Adams, and Chris Dupuis

Core members of performance group bluemouth inc. and poet a.rawlings invite you to the immersive electroacoustic somniloquixotic environment of The Centre for Sleep and Dream Studies.

News Commutes

Writer and Performer: Maggie Flynn

Performance artist Maggie Flynn has been travelling the TTC, collecting passengers’ conversations and turning them into playfully impromptu news broadcasts. Join her as she performs the breaking news of the every day throughout the city.

The Border
Writer and Performer: Evan Vipond
Director and Dramaturge: Evalyn Parry

Divorce Play: Russian Doll

Writer and Performer: Andrew Robinson
Director: Clinton Walker
Dramaturge: Evalyn Parry

Upper Toronto – Community Consultation
Writer and Performer: Jacob Zimmer
Co-Writer and Performer: Tim Maly

Upper Toronto is a science fiction design proposal for the building of a new Toronto above the current one. When Upper Toronto is finished, all residents of Lower Toronto will move up and Lower Toronto will be transformed into some combination of intentional ruin, national park, and farmland. This is, of course, a terrible idea. But it is a terrible idea that lets us imagine what kind of world we might want if we could start fresh. What kind of city do you want your grandchildren to live in?

Bleed
Writer and Director: Adam Lazarus
Creator and Performer: Phil Luzi
Lighting Designer: Michelle Ramsay
Consultant: Gillian Gallow

Today, something about Norman is off. Today, he didn’t go to work. Today he stayed at home. Now he is beginning to bleed.

PLEASE FOREVER PLEASE
Writer and Director: Alex Napier
Assistant Director: Naomi Skwarna
Performers: Emma McKenna, Amy Lam, Liz Peterson, and Meghan Swaby
Visual Artist: Sojourner Truth Parsons

A rebellious musical exploration of identity, through the lens of Ovid’s myth of Iphis,

33
Yamantaka//Sonic Titan
Writer, Director, Choreographer, and Performer: Angela Loft
Co-Writers, Composers, and Performers: Alaska B and Ruby Kato Performers: Brendan Swanson and Daniel Ellis
Projection Designer: Aylwin Lo

A black and white Noh-wave rock opera from up and coming music sensations Yamantaka//Sonic Titan.

Settlers
Birdtown and Swanville
Writer and Director: Aurora Stewart de Pena
Conceptual Director and Performer: Nika Mistruzzi
Dramaturge: Leora Morris
Set Designer and Costume Designer: Allie Marshall
Technical Director: Remington North
Sound Designers: Alia O’Brien and Andrew Zuckerman
Fight Director: Kaleb Alexander
Performers: Donna Maloney, Cara Gee, Brett Donahue, and Norman Yeung

A 17th century ghost story from the pioneering ladies of Birdtown and Swanville.

Walk With Me
Writer and Performer: Aynsley Moorhouse

Plug in your i-pod and take an audio walking tour of the perception and memories of people suffering from dementia.

Blue Light
Writer and Performer: Berenicci Hershorn

Tell a secret, then hear one in return.

satan in me
Writer and Performer: cassy walker
Director: Audrey Dwyer

A piece about negotiating a desire for self harm, and embracing parts of yourself that are considered evil.

Betterave Rouge/Red Beet
Writer and Performer: Claude Wittmann

Feed, be fed, change clothes, and do it all over again.

The Gay Heritage Project
Writers and Performers: Damien Atkins, Paul Dunn and Andrew Kushnir
Historian: Paul Halferty
Consulting Director: Ashlie Corcoran
Lighting Designer: Kimberly Purtell

Three leading queer creators/performers tackles ideas of gay identity, community, and heritage.

speaking of sneaking
Writer and Performer: Daniel Jelani Ellis
Director: Evalyn Parry

A young, black, queer Jamaican man negotiates when to silence and when to give voice to his intersecting identities.

Psychic Cooking Show
Writer and Performer: David Frankovich

Taste your future and have your fortune told from a tarot deck of canned food.

Gender Me
Deviant Productions
Writer and Performer: Evan Vipond

Come play dress up with a gender deviant.

Aujourdhuy 15e septembre 1738…’
Writer and Performer: Heather Hermant
Script Translator: Nadine Desrochers

Re-live the true story of 18th century gender-bending immigrant Esther Brandeau. Performance available in English and French.

Stepping Between Projections
Writer: James Diamond
Moderator: Ananya Ohri

A retrospective of work by celebrated video artist James Diamond, addressing issues of the body and multi-racial, queer, and mixed-sex identities.

Disease of Kings
Writer and Performer: Jamie Ebbs
Director: Alistair Newton

A young gay man’s battle with depression, and the glamorous facade he uses to veil his condition.

Trust My Gut
Writers and Performers: Johnny Forever and Marisa Hoicka

A high-camp, soap-operatic surgery performed to your favourite song.

Make Your Own China Doll Workshop
Writer and Performer: Johnson Ngo

Learn how to make a doll using a variety of materials.

Crossways
Writers and Performers: Jona Nah

Hold hands, smile, and come for a walk through the village.

Justin Vivian Bond
Writer and Performer: Justin Vivian Bond
Accompanist: Nath Ann Carrera

New York cabaret sensation Justin Vivian Bond performs a selection of songs from Dendrophile and readings from Justin’s book Tango.

CROTCH (All the Joseph Beuys references in the world cannot heal the pain, confusion, regret, cruelty, betrayal or trauma…)
Writer and Performer: Keith Hennessy

An elegy of queer art and personal heartache from internationally-acclaimed San Francisco performance artist Keith Hennessy.

Klangkorper 2.0 (‘Resounder Body’)
Writer and Performer: Kenji Ouellet
Performer: Katharina Weinhuber

Transform your body into a musical instrument in a live, surround sound performance.

Made to Order
Writer and Performer: Lady Janitor (aka Eroca Nicols)
Performers: Krista Posyniak, Madeleine Shen, Sky Fairchild-Waller, Cara Spooner, Rob Kingsbury, Karen Fennell Hostess: Messapotamia LeFae DJ: Peter Mitton

Throughout the festival, visit the Made to Order Cafe in Buddies’ Ante Chamber between 7-8pm to place an order for your fantasy dance performance, then see it performed live on stage Sunday night.

Sea Foam Blue
Writers and Performers: Leah Fay Goldstein, Emma-Kate Guimond and Julie Thomas
Composer: Brooke Manning

Through live animation and dance, three artists bring you the fantasy world of a sexually confused mermaid.

Light Fires
Performers: Light Fires

A live set by electro-dance duo Light Fires.

Department of Public Memory
Writers and Performers: Maggie Hutchenson and Elinor Whidden
Dramaturge and Performer: Zita Nyarady
Performers: Heather McLean, and Loree Lawrence

A public intervention about things we risk losing to municipal budget cuts. Meet the Department of Public Memory at Bloor St E. entrance to the Yonge/Bloor subway station and travel to Scarborough to visit the site of a bus route threatened by service reduction.

K-Town
Hosts: Meera Margaret Singh & Luke Painter

Sing along to karaoke videos created by local artists at this raucous late night party.

all the things we should have said that we never said
Writer and Performer: Melissa D’Agostino
Dramaturge: Diana Bentley

A chance to have that conversation you’ve been longing for.

Everyday is a Beautiful Day (nichi nichi kore ko nichi)
Director: Rose Plotek
Performers: Eleanor Hewlings, Amy Nostbakken, and Katie Swift

A performance determined by chance, inspired by the work of John Cage.

The Failure Show or: A Thirteen-Point Manifesto for the Consideration of Failure
Writer and Performer: Sarah Stanley
Director: Michael Rubenfeld
Video: David FM Hanes

This is about failure. This is about me and you. Let’s fall in love.

Red Coat Romance
Writer and Performer: Shannon Roszell

Have a Valentine’s Day skating date in Nathan Phillips Square. Come to the 519 to get your invitation ti this one-of-a-kind Valentine’s date.

Expectations
Writer and Performer: Sian Robinson Davies

In this show you will think about what it is that you want to receive from me and I will think about what it is that I want to give you.

The Little G8 That Could…
Edge of the Woods Theatre
Creator and Performer: Dan Watson
Video: Kathryn Heming, Andrew Sheppard, and Brenda Darling
Makeup: Lisa Quall

A live action documentary exploring the legacy of the G8 summit in Huntsville.

Night and Day
Writer and Performer: Mikiki
Sound Designer: Chris Regnier-Davies

A response to Susan Sontag’s AIDS and it’s Metaphors from sex educator and AIDS activist Mikiki.

The Big Thaw

A dance party to warm up your winter, with late night tunes supplied by Regina the Gentlelady.

Yellow Towel
Choreographer and Performer: Dana Michel

Dance artist Dana Michel tackles notions surrounding her African Caribbean heritage.

affliction
Writers and Performers: Thomas Morgan-Jones and Clare Preuss
Director: Nina Lee Aquino
Composer: Michelle Bensimon
Associate Director: Kawa Ada

A highly personal, physical exploration of a body in the grips of Multiple Sclerosis.

Marine Life
Writer: Rosa Laborde
Director: Natasha Mytnowych
Performers: Tommie-Amber Pirie, Phillip Riccio, and Scott McCord
Set and Costume Designer: Patrick Duwors
Lighting Designer: Trevor Schwellnus
Sound Designer: Eric Meadows
Stage Manager: Robin Munro

A tragic comedy about sibling relationships at the end of the world.

The Omnibus Bill
Writer: Darrah Teitel
Director: Esther Jun
Performers: Margaret Evans, Patrice Goodman, Lisa Li, and Natasha Greenblatt Designer: Joe Pagnan

A gender-bashing parliamentary re-enactment of Trudeau’s famous bedrooms of the nation Omnibus Bill.

Tom & Gary’s Decentralized Dance Party
Special Thanks: Melissa Wong and Unsilent Night Toronto

Grab your boombox, take to the streets and crush the despotic party paradigms of yore with some free and democratic open-source partying.

As in Happy
Writer and Performer: Michael David Lorsch
Director: Brendan Healy

On the eve of a national referendum on gay marriage, David searches for happiness in the end of a relationship.

WEproteSTern
Writer and Performer: Coral Maloney
Co-Writer and Performer: Ian Mozdzen

Two queer Winnipeggers tackles the festishization of cowboy culture in a frenetic protest/performance that asks if we call it all ‘queer,’ does that make it okay?

All the Ladies
Choreographer and Performer: Sasha Kleinplatz
Performers: Kelly Keenan, Rosie Cantin and Angie Cheng

This visceral dance performance builds and deconstructs ideas of femininity inside the frame of an all-female fight club.

Insert Monologue re: My Youth, Drugs & SSRI’s, HIV/AIDS, Angels in America, That Time Tilda Swinton Hugged Me
Writer and Performer: Vincent Chevailer

Layer images, text, and digital projections, the artist exposes their personal history through acts of disclosure.

Engaged
Composer and Performer: Scott Christian
Director: Leora Morris
Performers: Hume Baugh, Miranda Calderon, David Christo, Colin Doyle, Caitlin Driscoll, Alex Fallis, Sochi Fried, Eleanor Hewlings, Viv Moore and Andy Trithardt

A Victorian farce performed to a live piano in the style of silent film that investigates the tricky relationship between money and marriage.

Fay Slift and the Three Bears
Writer and Performer: John Paul Kane
Co-Writers and Performers: Trixie & Beever and Kaleb Robertson
Director: Lindsay Barton
Choreographer: Kitty Neptune
Costume Designer: Atom Cianfarani
Make-up and Photographer: David Hawe
Set and Props Designer: Nina Bunjevac

Ladybear Extraordinaire Fay Slift stars as Goldilocks in a high-drag, choose-your-own-adventure take on this familiar fairy tale.

Fire
Choreographer and Performer: Sze-Yang Ade-Lam
Co-Choreographers and Performers: Jelani Ade-Lam and Kumari Giles
Dramaturge: Gein Wong

Dance sensations ILL NANA take to the stage with courageous stories of personal survival in the face of homophobia, racism, shaming, and discrimination.

Roynation
Host: Roy Mitchell

Be a part of a special live broadcast the addictive ROYNATION. The weekly internet radio show/podcast/love-in will be chatting with some of the artists in Week Two of this year’s festival.

Naked Page
Writer and Performer: Nichola Ward
Music: Lynn Phillips

Merging poetry, music, and Japanese rope bondage, the poet-performer uses the bondage bottom as a naked page upon which to compose a formal poem.

Rhubarb Festival Kick Off Bash
Performer: Vag Halen

Toronto’s feminist art rock band is bringin’ the bad with a dash of ass to kick off this year’s Rhubarb. The night kicks off with a set of Vag Halen‘s queer cock rock, and goes late into the night with tunes by DJ Vanessa Dunn.

Dirty Plotz
Curator: Alex Tigchelaar
Performers: Jess Dobkin, Christine Pountney, Keisha Scott, Laura Kane, Hoa Nguyen and Zoe Whittall
Choreographer: Cat Nimmo

An ensemble of female performers take on the historical exclusion and erasure of women in art and social justice movements.

The Faroe Islands
Writer: Nicolas Billon
Director: Ravi Jain
Performers: Claire Calnan and Jessica Moss

A young woman’s idealism is challenged by the infamous whale hunt in Faroe Islands. This special presentation is staged for an intimate audience of 15 people inside The 519.

How Can I Forget?
Writer, Director, Performaner: Sook-Yin Lee
Performer: Benjamin Kamino
Assistant: Adam Litovitz

An immersive multimedia exploration of remembering and forgetting, featuring original videos and a musical score by Sook-Yin Lee.

Glaciology
Choreographer and Performer: Brandy Leary
Performers: Brandy Leary, Ryan Lee, Amy Hampton, Jennifer Robichaud, Lucy Rupert and Louis Laberge Cote
Composer: James Bunton

Follow a group of dance artists as they create a massive human glacier that slowly moves through the city streets. Music for this performance will be posted on our blog on the day of the show.

Evil Love Songs
Writer and Performer: Katie Sly
Director Jess Dobkins
YCU Director: Evalyn Parry

Explored at times on the streets downtown Toronto, and at other times in mythic labyrinths and forests filled with fantastic creatures, in Evil Love Songs a young woman grapples with being caught between the dichotomies of gay and straight, as well as monogamous and promiscuous.

Graceful Rebellions
Writer and Performer: Shaista Latif
Director: Evalyn Parry
YCU Director: Evalyn Parry

Meet Laily, Wazma, and Zenat. Each have a story to tell. Each suffer for joys divine and destructive and all have much to lose. Can an Afghan woman gain power under the rule of man?

All Good Things
Writer and Director: Bruce Barton
Performer: Martin Julien
Lighting Designer: Laird MacDonald
Sound Designer: Steph Berston
Dramaturge: Pil Hansen

Hold someone’s hand as if your life depended on it. Because it did, and it does, and it will again.

Disco Hospital
Writer and Performer: Andrew Zeally

Experience a new queer shamanism in this performance ritual that combines therapeutic touch and sonic therapy. Participants are invited to bring an offering in exchange for this experience.

Eulogy
Writer and Performer: Rachel Steinberg
Explore a room full of curated objects as you hear stories about their history.

Fearful Ghost of Former Bloom
Choreographer and Performer: Davy Bisaro
Music: Max Alexander

Use your flashlight to illuminate the performer and her mirror-balled hands to create your own intimate universe of moving stars.

Moles Dancing
Writer and Performer: Cathy Gordon

Slip on a pair of headphones, don a blindfold, and stumble into the mole hole for a clumsy encounter.

Silver Threads and Golden Needles
Writer and Performer: Stacey Sproule

Receive a tattoo, embroidered on your clothing, as you meditate on rites of passage and the idea of healing.

mothermothermothermothermothermother…
Writer and Performer: Michael Rubenfeld
Performer: Mary Berchard
Collaborators: Sarah Stanley and Natasha Greenblatt

Join in a recreation of an unfinished argument between the artist and his mother in the hopes of finding a resolution.

The Day You Died and the Hour You Were Born
Writer and Performer: Brescia Brixia Bloodbeard
Performers: Melisse Watson, Naty Tremblay, and Joce Tremblay

Journey into a magical world of shadow puppetry, where imagination illuminates the space between life and death.

Monsters, Angels and Aliens are not a Substitute for Spirituality
Writer and Performer: Andrew Tay

Part performance, part ritual, and part spiritual investigation that delves into the strange and impossible ways we use to comfort ourselves when faced with the unexplainable.

Step By Step
Writers and Performers: Andres Galeano and Ieke Trinks

Two artists create and perform a new choreography every night by searching random ‘how to’ instructions on the internet.

Shostakovich, or Three Days in Red
Writer, Director, Choreographer: Adam Paolozza
Co-Writer and Composer: Sam Sholdice
Performers: Viktor Lukawski, Rob Feetham, Daniele Bartolini and Miranda Calderon

Four actors simultaneously play a single character in this movement-based piece that explores the effects of oppression on the human body.

Peachy Coochy on Ritual: The Everyday, the Occasional, the Invented and the Inherited
Curator: Erin Brubacher

Erin has invited people. They’ve assembled a collection of images on these notions of ritual. They’ll have 20 seconds per image to tell us about them. They’ll have to be quick on their feet. Derived from the Japanese PechaKucha, a form devised for young designers exactly a decade ago, the Peachy Coochy is smart, sweet, reveling and revealing.

Dandy Decay
Writer and Performer: George Stamos
Sound Designer: Jackie Gallant

A virtuoso solo performance that traces ideas of queer family, inheritance, and power from the AIDS activism of the 1980s through to the present day.

How to Store Pomegranates
Writer and Performer: Sina Gilani
Director: Alistair Newton
YCU Director: Evalyn Parry

A young man is chosen, for reasons unknown to him, to be in a space for 25 minutes to tell a story, and it’s great since the young man is looking for a space, a refuge really, from everything out there.

To the Other Side
Writer and Performer: Aemilius (Milo) Ramirez
Director: Gein Wong
YCU Director: Evalyn Parry

A trans narrative where before and after is reclaimed and redefined. This semi-autobiographical piece presents conversations not often given space to share: the acceptance and forgiving of family, learning to honour your body, acknowledging your past, confronting a life no less difficult or complicated. This piece is dedicated to those who in leaving this world took with them many stories left unsaid

Vigil(ance)
Creators: Jordan Tannahill and William Christopher Ellis

Join a travelling intervention that brings light to the spaces in our city where we do not feel safe at night.

Knit Bombing Installation
Textile Installations by: Johnny Forever and Kate McGrann
Knitters: Michael Mackid, Debbie Arruda, Isidra Cruz, Katy Grabstas, Kesta Graham, Marcia Johnson, Kristy Kennedy and Dylan Uscher

Buddies’ Ante-Chamber and some nearby outdoor spaces get bundled up for winter by our team of knit bombers and textile artists.

Resistance & Raunch
Co-Curators: Kim Crosby, Vivek Shraya and Mikiki

This late-night cabaret reacts against slut shaming and sexual violence in a radical celebration of sex, resistance, smut, difference, spirituality, and unapologetic pleasure.

DUCT TAPE

Throughout the festival, one artist will cover Buddies in a colourful mosaic of duct tape.

artist Mark Reinhart

SPACE AGENCY

Witness an artist fill the Ante Chamber with miniature imagined performance spaces, inspired by the work in this year’s festival and conversations with you.

artist Katrin Whitehead

THE RHUBARB ARCHIVE

A collection of scripts, books, posters, photos, programmes, and other interesting ephemera from the history of Rhubarb will be on display throughout the festival for audiences to read, share, and add to.

ROYNATION

Be a part of a special live broadcast of the addictive ROYNATION. The weekly internet radio show/podcast/love-in will be chatting with some of the artists in this year’s festival. The podcast will also be available for download later in the week.

host/producer Roy Mitchell | producer Sandy McLeod

AN ANTHOLOGY OF BELONGING

Using a unique blend of live animations, video projections, music, and storytelling, the artist creates an intimate portrayal of physical and mental illness.

creator/performer Kerri Flannigan | performer Claire Lyke

NO ONE RECEIVING

A high-camp sci-fi odyssey about one woman’s quest to save our planet’s pop music after the earth is destroyed by aliens.

creator/performer Maggie MacDonald | director Stephanie Markowitz | performer John Southworth | visuals Roxanne Luchak

TRAPPED!

This film-noir lesbian melodrama thrusts you into a ‘high-estrogen’ world of lust, betrayal, and murder.

playwright Hope Thompson | director Morgan Norwich | performers Carolyn Taylor, Kat Letwin, & Sarah Joy Bennett | sound Kevin Krouglow

QUEER FUTURES CABARET

A late-night series of short performances that imagine the future possibilities of our queerness.

curators Sedina Fiati, Vivek Shraya & Nat Trembly

THE FUN PALACE RADIO VARIETY SHOW

Experience the live taping of an old fashioned internet variety show, complete with serial drama, music, science fiction, and some special surprise guests.

Small Wooden Shoe | producer/host Jacob Zimmer | writing from Brendan Gall, Jacob Zimmer, Evan Webber & Deanne Taylor | music director Scott Maynard | performers Christopher Stanton, Nicola Correia-Damude, Richard Allen Campbell & Susanna Fournier | different special guests each night including Vivek Shraya, Becky Johnson, Hannah Cheesman, Chad Dembski, Felicity Williams, John Southworth, Maggie MacDonald, Jessica Moss, Thom Gill, Stewart Legere, Mel Hague and more.

SINCE SANTINO XXX

An autobiographical tale of heartbreak told through a series of marriage proposals, starting at the age of six.

writer Jill Connell|director Katie Swift

HENRI FABERGÉ ON THE LAMB

A politically and sexually charged 19th Century rock and roll melodrama.

creator/director Henri Fabergé | writer/performers Henri Faberge, Kayla Lorette & Alex Tindal | musical accompanist D. Alex Meeks

JAGGED CANYONS

Using a unique blend of performance art, dance, and prop comedy, one performer tells the story of two sisters who were once friends and are now enemies.

creator/performer Bridget Moser | prop construction & production assistance Paul Tjepkema

THE PRINCIPLE OF PLEASURE

Vogueing, hip hop, and striptease blend into a virtuoso solo dance performance set entirely to Janet Jackson remixes.

creator/performer Gerard Reyes | artistic advisors Archie Burnett & Jose Xtravaganza | music “Control” and “Anytime Anyplace” by Janet Jackson, James Harris III, Terry Lewis | original music composer for vogue track & editor for “Anytime Anyplace” Devon Bate | music editor for “Control” Tyrone Callender | costume designer Vincent Tiley | lighting designer Marc Tétrault | photographer Damian Siqueiros

This project was funded in part by Le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

VIKING BLOOD

Join the artist on an epic hero’s journey as he completes a series of challenges to examine his family’s Viking roots and ask what it means to be strong.

creator/performer Humboldt Magnussen

BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO

Experience the ultimate performance in this bouffon-inspired send up of experimental theatre and performance art.

ZOU Theatre | creator/performers Viktor Lukawski & Nicolas Di Gaetano | performer Deanna Jones

THE SCHOOL OF BARTERED KNOWLEDGE

Visit this installation at The 519 to exchange something you know for something you don’t. Performances take place at regular intervals, so audiences may come at any point during the day.

creator/performer Golboo Amani

presented in partnership with The 519 Church Street Community Centre.

LISTENING AT THE CLGA

A marathon 24-hour listening party at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives digitizing and broadcasting their extensive collection of cassette tapes.

creator Christopher Willes | dramaturg Cathy Gordon

presented in partnership with the Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives.

DUORAMA #114

The latest performance in 14-year long series of participatory, site-specific works about male intimacy.
creator/performers Paul Couillard & Ed Johnson

Presented by FADO in association with The 35th Rhubarb Festival.

IF THESE MASON JARS COULD SPEAK…

Find out what happens to race and identity in our distant future – a time where all living beings have turned transparent.

creator/performer Alvis Parsley | with assistance from Kat Kleine

MISSED PORTRAITS

The artist invites you to tell a story about someone you miss. As they listen, they draw you a portrait of that person.

creator/performer Evan Tapper

THE VESTILE VIRGINS IN THE TEMPLE OF SECRETS

Tell someone about a time you’ve been called ‘crazy’, maybe it’s something that’s happened to a lot of us.

BIRDTOWN AND SWANVILLE | creator Aurora Stewart de Pena | performed by Rebecca Applebaum, Jessica Salgueiro, Julia Lederer, Gwyneth Tossell, Lauren Bride, Jill Holmberg and Mark Aikman

ROYNATION

Be a part of a special live broadcast of the addictive ROYNATION. The weekly internet radio show/podcast/love-in will be chatting with some of the artists in this year’s festival. The podcast will also be available for download later in the week.

host/producer Roy Mitchell | producer Sandy McLeod

BECOMING AN IMAGE

Becoming an Image, a piece that works at the interstice of performance and sculpture.

Using their extensive physical strength and training to unleash a full-blown attack on a 2,000-pound block of clay, the artist delivers a series of kicks and blows in total darkness. The spectacle will only be illuminated by the flash of a photographer, burning the image into the viewer’s retina. The remains is a violent sculpting, a soft passive clay body bearing the indexical trace of the beating it has taken.

creator/performer Heather Cassils | photographer Alejandro Santiago

co-presented by The 35th Rhubarb Festival, Pleasure Dome and Trinity Square Video in association with The Art Gallery of York University.

35 PERFORMANCES FOR 35 YEARS

Artists from throughout Rhubarb’s history mark the festival’s 35th anniversary with raw remixes of past work and radical responses to what’s happening now.

curated by Laura Nanni | hosted by Keith Cole and Shannon Cochrane | featuring Sky Gilbert, Cynthia Grant, David Roche, Daniel David Moses, Elley Ray Hennessy, Ed Roy, Death Waits, Mammalian Diving Reflex, Coman Poon, David Bateman, Cathy Gordon, Sarah Stanley, Chad Dembski, Sonja Mills, Shannon Cochrane, Alistair Newton, Jordan Tannahill, Tawiah M’carthy, Keith Cole, Birdtown Swanville, Life of a Craphead, Patricia Wilson, Nicolas Billon, Erin Brubacher, Vertical City, Ill Nana, Liz Peterson, Ryan G. Hinds, Hannah Moscovitch and many more.

DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MY FUCKING SELF?

The very first theatrical offering from the first lady of Toronto’s indie music scene, Regina the Gentlelady, from the band Light Fires.

creator/performer Regina the Gentlelady | outside eye Adam Lazarus

THE FEMME PLAYLIST

A collection of stories about life as a single mother and queer femme of colour, set to a musical playlist. Plus an opening performance from Dainty Smith.

playwright/performer Catherine Hernandez | director Gein Wong | music consultation Brescia Bloodbeard | dramaturg Cyrée Jarelle Johnson

CHIMERA

Twin fetuses question the nature of their existence and whether they are alive at all; as they start to unravel the answers they realize that one of them is vanishing – and being absorbed by the other.

writer/performer Rory Jade Grey | director Evalyn Parry

ALT TITLE: I WISH I KNEW

A questioning bisexual woman exposes her struggle with desire, repression, and the need for transformation; through a collage of personal narratives, the public eye is acknowledged and challenged as a reflector for what is normal and alternately “mad”.

writer/performer Jackie Rowland | director Alistair Newton

TWENTY-SOMETHING OR NOTHING

A 24-year-old closeted gay man struggles with societal pressure, mortality, and regret. In his emotional paralysis, this dark comedy explores what it means to be successful and to challenge society’s – and his own – standards of happiness and failure.

writer/performer Ramon Vitug | director Brendan Healy

The YCU is part of Buddies’ Queer Youth Arts Program and is supported by our Education Sponsor TD Bank Group.

BEYOND BODY POLITIC (THE ARTISTIC PROCESSING OF HISTORICAL FACT)

Watch as lemonTree creations interview key players from seminal queer newspaper The Body Politic and incorporate what they learn into a scene or monologue which is performed live on the spot.

This is a durational project, so feel free to pop in whenever you like and stay for as long as you want.

lemonTree creations | creators Indrit Kasapi, Cole Alvis, Jonathan Seinen, Nick Green, Gein Wong | performers Tawiah M’carthy, Jeff Ho, Shaista Latif, Amanda Cordner | speakers El-Farouk Khaki, Sonny Mills & more

Beyond Body Politic was developed as part of Buddies’ Artist Residency Program and presented at Rhubarb in partnership with Pink Triangle Press.

I SAY THIS AS A GIFT

Participate in the archiving of our city’s history, as elder members of the queer community share their memories with you to be documented, cherished, and passed on.

creators Gein Wong with Kim Crosby & Jade Lee Hoy

presented in partnership with Glad Day Bookshop

Model Homes Act One, Abridged
Writer: A. Shay Hahn
Director: Karla Faulconbridge

A poet, a psychiatrist and an arts reporter are caught in the all consuming whirlpool that is Genevieve Deacon, literary agent and one of Toronto’s most infamous pseudo celebrities. Join them as they frantically race through a treacherous labyrinth of restaurants, book launches and theatre openings. Model Homes is a comedic address to the condo/loft dwelling citizens of Toronto and a sympathetic look at the price of perfection.

Headache Grey
Writer: Adam Cowart
Director: Chris Kent

A dark comedy about the inevitability of cubicle life at 3:42am, Headache Grey is a desperate tale of escape. While the seconds tick slowly through the 142nd minute of his shift, Robert watches the palm trees dance through the window he wasn’t supposed to have.

Steve and Grace
Writer: Blair Francey

Ooglie Boogly
Writer: Bradley Garrick
Director: Alison Lawrence

A summer. An audition. A retreat. A cult.

All I Ever Wanted To Be
Writer: Cathy Gordon-Marsh
Director: Kyle Tingley

Actress. Gardener. Poet. Architecht. Lawyer. Politician. Comedian. Novelist. Painter. Chef. Dancer. Camp Counsellor. Director. Model. Fashion Consultant. Massage Thearpist. Secretary. Dishwasher. Singer…so many professions, so little time.

The Road (Part One)
Writer: Charles Picco
Director: Kelly Thorton

From a certain point onwards there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

Rockstar 101
Writer and Director: Chris Leavins

A play about Nightclubs. Featuring four number one hit singles written specifically for the show. COME AND GET DOWN!

The Erotic Curve of the Earth
Writer and Director: Conrad Alexandrowicz

Pop Songs and Pop Culture. How do they define our relationships, our self image, our lives? What drives us to worship at the altar of the pop divas and the body beautiful? The Erotic Curve of the Earth asks the age-old question: Does love exist beyond neurotic dependency?

Repeat Ad Lib. And Fade
Writer: Corrina Hodgson
Director: Molly Thom

A memory piece set in a lodge in northern Ontario. The play travels between the present in which a woman and her daughter prepare to sell the lodge which has been in the family for years. The tragic connection between the lake and the grandmother emerges slowly as layers of deception and family history are swept away.

Pppeeeaaaccceee
Writer and Director: Darren O’Donnell

It’s a difficult play to describe; it’s really only a conversation. It’s just as hard to think of reasons why anyone should be interested in it as as it is to think of reasons for why they shouldn’t. It’s no big deal. Honestly; see for yourself. It’s about life after the revolution.

The Bather: How I Learned to Swim to Cambodia and Hush
Writer and Performer: David Bateman
Director: Cameron Esler

Performance artist David Bateman presents two new monologues, THE BATHER: HOW I LEARNED TO SWIM TO CAMBODIA (Paula Vogel meets Spalding Gray on the titanic), followed by HUSH (Shari Lewis meets critical race theory at the Pound). These two introspective tirades give new meaning to Whose Dog’s Life is it Anyway?

The Freelance Lover
Writer: Evalyn Parry
Director: Meredith Vuchnich

Sampling lovers like they’re career options, she ethically sluts her way through Toronto’s girl-scene, aided and abetted by her post as a Starbucks barrista…told in rhyme, this musical adventure of lust and freedom is the first installment in the (somewhat smutty) adventures of ‘The Freelance Lover’.

Enter the Chicken
Writer: Gil Garratt
Director: Warren Sulatycky

(actual stage directions from Gil’s play) From the wings, comes flying, bounding in, a young man dressed like a fighting cock, he is hollering and panting. Offstage, a second vicious wild war cry of the inbred warrior chicken is heard.

Dear John: What’s Left After Goodbye?
Writer: Gordon Mackeracher
Director: Jordan Merkur

You’ve received that dreaded letter saying your grand love affair is over. What’s left after goodbye? Dear John is a comic series of reflections on urban gay love, sex, and heart-break. Recovery has got to mean more than desperate midnight phone calls, chain-smoking, revenge fantasies, and Mary Tyler Moore re-runs. Doesn’t it?

Margot and the Great Big Plate
Writer: Greg Kearney
Director: Caroline Azar

PASSION. COURAGE. SMALL PERT BREASTS. Just a few of the ingredients that make your average Champion. A Champion like Betty. Margot, on the other hand, has a very hard time finding the proper athletic support.

Girls Girls Girls
Writer: Greg MacArthur
Director: John Delacourt

Brockville, Ontario. OFSSA gymnastic finals. Splitz chokes. Missy comes out with the red. Splitz wants revenge. Tragedy’s coming in on the morning bus. Loosely based on the brutal murder of Reena Virk.

…Open Wound
Writer and Director: Jacob Zimmer

A play for four actors, a film projector, a reel to reel, some bleach, a lot of coffee, and the erosion of memory into paralysis.

Roller City
Writer: James Flagal
Director: Patrick Conner

There’s a first time when we all fall in love. Before any labels erect barriers. Before we’re consumed by peer pressure. But what happens when a 13 year-old boy is confronted by his first love and worst fears at Roller City? Are roller discos really a thing of the past – or do they always lurk beneath the surface?

Turkey in the Woods
Writer: Jan Derbyshire
Director: John Palmer

In a small clearing near a turkey shooting range. Two estranged sisters and their strange mother attempt to celebrate Thanksgiving for the first time in ten years.

Playing in the Leaves
Writer: Jefferson Guzman
Director: Ruthe Whiston

Searching for more? A high energy and comedic story of people who search for more. Some find love, and an understanding of their relationships … some discover their sexual orientation and the intricacies of gay life … others awareness and enlightenment.

Bunnyfucker
Writer: John Delacourt
Director: Chad Dembski

Bunnyfucker is a goat play for the theme park generation … A shiny, happy, rubber baby revolution reverie.

Rabid: Part One, Tommyskeds.
Writer: Kevin Jd Rees
Director: Sam Stedman

A skinhead faerie tale: I’m normal love! This place is Jiminy crickets. But I am normal. So normal. White picket fences, the whole bit! I am so goddamn normal.` Happily … However After.

The Anna Russel Story
Writer: Marc Richard
Dramaturge: Robert Tsonos Musical
Director: Michael Jones

Before Bette Midler … Before Mary-Lou Fallis there was…Anna Russell. A Canadian-born comedic icon, she set the standard for others to follow … Welcome to 1953, the Eaton Auditorium, Toronto.

Matador Love
Writer: Morwyn Brebner
Director: Kate Lynch

The story of Enid and Mr. Anonymous – their dinner, their fistfight, their maybe-love. He has a fetich, she has a complex. He wants to fuck and fight; she wants to be in love. Are these goals compatible?

The Butler Enters
Writers: Rebecca Brown and Jennifer Tarver

Blowing the dust off a 1941 textbook on ‘How to Direct’, The Directors’ Gym sets the stage for a face-off in a maze of compositional parameters. Bound by a fixed set of ‘theatrical rules’, a select group of Toronto’s cutting-edge directors flex their directorial muscles. Sparks will fly as modern artistic instincts collide with archaic ground rules of the past … let the games begin. The Butler enters, re-enters and enters again.

Seed
Writer: Ronit Cohen
Director: Bruce Hunter

The Nesbitt’s anniversary dinner isn’t what they thought it would be when they invite their lesbian neighbours over to celebrate. A FedEx blunder, Glenn Close, and a favour to ask … Salad anyone?

Throat
Writer: Sean Raycraft
Director: David Oiye

Leo Mantha found love with Aaron Bud Jenkins in the summer of 1958. Leo had just turned 30, and was a sailor for Victoria’s merchant marine. Bud – ten years Leo’s junior – was an officer for the Royal Canadian Navy. They had an intense affair – a short affair – and shortly after midnight, September 6th, Bud was found stumbling through his naval base. His forehead was slashed open. A knife stabbed through his throat.

WHY? A Drunken Comedy in One Act
Writer: Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

hey rea, hey rea
Writer: Anna Chatterton
Director: Sue Miner

I don’t like my belly, it’s lumpa lumpy stumpy. Other people looking at me and my lumpa stumpa bawdly. Like yuck like fuck like stuck here I’m stuck here wanna be scrawny. I want-a have it spit and be cooler. My weight state status lapis beauty, slurpies slurped up.

Monologue for a Woman with No Hair
Writer: Bernie Martin
Adapter: Kate Story
Director: Susan Spicer

Dancing faeries. Giant hat -pins. A woman who believes she is universally despised and bald. This little jewel written by Bernie Martin discloses from within its false gold proscenium a richly – layered, tightly – wound and slightly sick Victorian Sensibility.

Nightwood
Writer: Caridad Svich
Director: Eryn Dace Trudell with the company

Nightwood brings forth a dark and beautiful, gender labyrinth. This, continuously altering state of consciousness, journeys the sexual and spiritual world linking Olokun (Christopher Sawchyn), Olosa (Eleonor Prokop) and Yamaya (Laryssa Yanchuk) Weaving the erotic with the violent, this path of awareness mingles elemental landscape with animal instinct and evokes a sense of looking inside the body outward.

Comedy of Horrors I: Cardboard Box
Writer and Director: Celia McBride

Charlie has terrible nightmares and likes to wear his wife’s Avon products. His wife, Who is named Avon , and who works for Avon, secretly moonlights as a display at a pornographic museum. Their daughter Libby has to live with this knowledge. Even BoBo, their Chihuahua, cannot escape unscathed.

The Mourning
Writer: Charles Picco
Director: Edward Roy

I supposed every writer must inevitably, and often regrettably, tackle his/her family play. So, without further ado, here’s my family play. Not to imply this particular family play is about my family. Or even your family. But I’m certain it’s about someone’s family. I thank you for your time.

Fridge Magnet
Writer: Christian Lloyd
Director: Pragna Desai

Michael and Sebastian are celebrating their 3rd anniversary during day 3 of the Montréal ice storm. No food , no heat, no corkscrew for the wine. They soon discover that the basement holds the answer to their prayers. ( think beaches set Antarctica!)

Humpty Dumpty Meets the Last Adult Virgin
Writer: Claudia Dey
Director: Daryl Cloran

The world is ending … A diner the one in the middle of nowhere and everywhere, between suburbia and a hard place. Its neon sign flickers: if looks almost as deserted as the woman standing next to it. Guinevere – the last adult virgin. She has just fallen, Watch he as she meets her maker: Humpty Dumpty, the patron saint of cracked, broken or somehow compromised eggs. Hey, it’s a short trip from virgin to slut.

The Strange Wet Saga of the Disappearing Ballerina
Writer and Director: Gil Garratt
Co-Director: Ken MacKenzie

A soft wild whispering scream while standing in the rain at the opera dreaming sequined and sparkling circus bodies burning by the floating candles in the long sad river of leaky buckets. We holler and dance, giggling among the vicious fish. The lights fade softly on this water ballet funeral.

Stem
Writer, Director, and Performer: Greg MacArthur
Co-Writers and Performers: Clinton Walker (House of Slacks) & Erika Hennebury and Ruth Madoc-Jones (Les Vaches)

Good food. Good wine. Good friends. Good time. Normal events seen as harmful.

Ontario 2055
Writer (adaptation) and Director: James Harkness

Based on the play Lithuania, by Rupert Brooke.

Violence is inevitable in a society which lacks compassion… A frightening tale retold from 21st century north American perspective. Where will we be in Ontario, 2055? Did this year’s tax cut really improve your situation?

Spinning in the Rain
Writer: Jefferson Guzman
Director: Clinton Walker

Clouds span the sky, running from the eye of the storm. I choose to walk blinded to it’s center. I pray let me pass without harm. Leave me spinning, gently in the rain.

Sept.
Writer: Jeffrey Simlett
Director: Stephen Seabrook

(A long contemplative silence) Andrew: What am I doing?(The doorbell rings. He doesn’t move.) How long have I been sitting here? (The phone rings. He sits even more than before). I used to have hair. (Music. He adjusts himself. Douglas enters) Douglas: Lets get down to business. I’ll get the corkscrew. (The music swells).

Incompletance
Writer: Kevin Morris
Director: Carlo Guillermo Proto

An exploration of existentialist thought, in which a man becomes lost in his own mind while contemplating existential questions. The result, well, you’ll see.

Sardine Mean
Writer and Director: Lindsay Price

The rat race can be seen as a can of sardines. A man takes a subway hostage in the middle of morning rush hour. He’s got a grudge against anyone who lives for a job they hate. Sardine Mean: a roller-coaster ride from beginning to end. All commuters beware.

Fucking Anais
Writer: Linor David
Director: Ellen-Ray Hennessy

When it is dark and you feel as if tomorrow will never cum, stimulate the light in yourself…

Great White Hopes
Writer: Melissa Bell
Director: Dean Gabourie

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch, Bitch, Bitch.

AC198
Writer: Mike McPhaden
Director: Patrick Conner

4 lives. Up in the air.

Bitch and Bastard Play
Writer: Scott McKay
Director: John Delacourt

Such a simple request. Can’t a guy get some more cheesies before the game starts, without a big song and dance? But it’s enough to re-ignite a duel that’s lasted longer than neither Hector nor Bob can remember.

Moth Girl and Sunchild at the Shop N’ Save
Writer: Shannon Quinn
Director: Michele Coleman

There are over 10,000 species of moths in North America. When I was six my mom Zina had to go away for a little bit. She grew gold and silver paper wings. The best place to spot a moth is on a warm, muggy, moonless night. All night gas stations are also a good choice.

The Regina Monologues
Writer: Shoshana Sperling
Director: Ed Sahely

Disclaimer: No actual monologues will be used during this performance. It’s as cold as ice. You’re willing to sacrifice our love.

Mom’s Favorite Jesus
Writer and Director: Sonja Mills

Horrible childhood relationships with one’s siblings lead to unpleasant adult relationships. It is the sincere, if impractical opinion of this playwright that children just shouldn’t be raised together. It can only lead to misery.

Sometimes They Take You Places
Writer: Vanessa Shaver Director: Vinetta Strombergs

A cab ride becomes an unexpected experience for a woman fighting against mid-life doldrums.

Look Busy
Writer: James Harkness
Director: Brian Quirt

Martin sits alone feeding his pigeons. He remembers a time when coffee and a doughnut only cost $1.80. Now the cafe wants $1.75 for a medium coffee. What’s a man to do? Originally created for the Bye Mike Cabaret, in response to policies of the current Ontario Government.

Delusions of Grandure
Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Director: Clinton Walker

An artist, her ego, her dream and her mother. A quasi-fictional investigation into the social and genetic origins of one woman’s delusions of fame.

Stroke Static
Writer and Director: Lindsay Price

Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. If a man has static upstairs in his attic, to the point where his reason is smeared, will the weight of a stroke make his mind sputter shock will the surface has drown disappeared. Blood stop. Blood go. Blood Stop. Blood Go. Blood Stop.

Cringeworthy
Writer: Alex Poch-Goldin
Director: Sarah Phillips

On a snowy evening in Victorian England, in the cramped confines of Mr. Cringeworthy’s office, the repercussions of a bad business deal reach disturbing proportions. Senor Tarantella, responsible for a large sum of money to the conniving Cringeworthy, is educated in the arena of payback.

5 Easy Steps
Writer: Scott McKay
Director: Ellen-Ray Hennessy

Tired of being an underpaid or unpaid theatre hack? Catch this high energy, mind-toggleing seminar with marketing guru, Jarry Hardin–guaranteed to make yer balls tingle!

The Source
Writer: Rosa Laborde
Director: Ian Carpenter

You can choose to live frustrated and unfulfilled, or you can choose to cut out those things you don’t need and live the life you deserve–in the dark, with a scalpel, with God, with drugs.

infoline, bonjour
Writer: Julian Doucet
Directors: Erika Hennebury and Clinton Walker

In the summer of the Mike Harris Provincial Conservative Government sent out a questionnaire entitled, We want to hear from you to every household in Ontario. I was hired to answer to toll-free line published in the survey. We were instructed not to give out our names…instead we were given a number. Mine was 39. This is what I heard from Ontario residents.

Cold Water
Writer: Henry Bakker
Director: Michael Kessler

Four outsiders, each suffering in their own private hell, meet randomly at a remote truck stop. Peculiar circumstances, and lots of coffee, compel each to reveal the source of their sorrow. One by one, these horrific accounts tangle together to reveal the true nature of their collective nightmare.

Happy?
Writer and Director: Celia McBride

It’s Bob’s birthday. Or is it? Alice wants Bob to wish for a job. But Bob is a slob. Bob doesn’t want to wish for a job. And Alice is about to get robbed.

You Are There
Writer: Wes Berger
Director: Celia McBride

A family watched a televised news account of a drowning caused by indifferent bystanders. Who could do such a thing? the appalled parents ask, even as their own children’s cries go unanswered. Is passivity the disease of our era? Tune in at 11:00…

Three Legs at Night
Writer and Director: Christopher Benisch

Three stories about love, fellatio and porn weave together and unveil the frailties of our sexual politics;;as told through the voice of an 8-year-old-girl-cum-pornstar (and her speech about the cockroach). An entomological comedy. An anthropological tragedy.

Everybody’s Whore
Writer: James Massri Chaarani
Director: Greg Campbell

Whoring isn’t easy. Samir is thrown out after coming out to his Islamic parents, and finds himself trying to satisfy his religion, family and boyfriend. And the boyfriend is twice his age! What’s a boy to do?

Killer Keller
Writer and Director: Alex Bulmer

The audience sits in the dark, unable to see a thing…nothing…nil. Through the magic of words and sounds, an entire world of places, people and things will come to life through description.

Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine
Writer: Anna Chatterton
Writer: Evalyn Parry
Director: Sue Miner

A modern moral tale of obsession and demise in which a series of distressed damsels all meet their untimely ends as victims of their fashionable fixations.

Dead Teenagers
Writer: R. M. Vaughan
Director: Moynan King

The Reverend has a peculiar problem–she can’t stop attending funerals. Big public funerals for teenagers are her specialty. A play about voyeurism and mortality. Dead Teenagers is the final installment of Vaughan’s Monster Trilogy.

Membership
Creator: Canadia dell’Arte Theatre
Director: Peter Reitzel

Are you a member?

City of the Blind
Writer: Adam Gaudreau
Director: Ruth Madoc-Jones

You wake to find a shadowy figure standing on your chest. It tells you of a city where the people are blind, the buildings are beautiful and the scents as lulling as that of a newborn babe. It tells you that only through this scented labyrinth will you find escape from your present horror. Slowly you open the door, only to find another door, and another…and you are sure of nothing more.

Boob Soup
Writer: Emma C. Roberts
Director: Allegra Fulton

Boob Soup chronicles the highly charged, murderous attraction between a jaded Head of State, the Queen, and a brash charming thug, the Prisoner, who meet and fall in love in a dungeon. A play about the tenacity of love in impossible situations.

Fridays with Frieda
Writer: Christian Lloyd
Director: John Gordon

Frank goes to the park for lunch. Frieda goes to meet someone. The share a bench. The next week, Frieda is waiting for someone. She meets a complete stranger, Frank. It’s Harold and Maude meets Memento.

Bone
Writer: Leanne Dixon
Director: Viv Moore

Project Bone is an individual and highly personal one whose history lies within my own experiences dealing with a physically debilitating illness. The piece explores the skeleton of human existence confronting issues of self-power, fear and our own mortality. Stripped down to our bare essentials, beyond our masks and defenses, what lies at our core?

The Trials of John Demjanjuk
Writer: Jonathan Garfinkle
Director: Jennifer H. Capraru

Did he or didn’t he do it? No. And yes. They look alike. Smell alike. Dress alike. Who is who? Murderer. Family man. Sadist. Sweetheart. John Demjanjuk, meet you doppelganger, Ivan the terrible, the man who controlled the gas chambers in Treblinka death camp. A poetic journey into cabaret, inspired by the 1987 Jerusalem Trial.

I Like You
Writers and Directors: Kevin Rees-Cummings and Sean MacMahon

There is no narrative. This is no experiment. It’s just that, we really want you to like us. Honestly, Sean and Kevin.

Emma Zunz
Adapter and Director: Christopher Brauer
Choreographer: Heidi Strauss.

Based on a short story by Jorge Luis Borges

This is an insignificant piece, about an insignificant woman who commits a murder. It is a small story, though no less chilling for it. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is also a true story. Now, whether what you will see is true…that is a whole other story.

Untitled
Writer and Director: JP Robichaud

A piece of performed sculpture. Untitled is JP’s first return to this medium since graduating from York University’s Visual Arts Program in 1997.

Snowman
Writer: Greg MacArthur
Director: David Oiye

We live simple and quiet, me an Marjorie. We got what we need and we like what we got. Not much. A Wood stove, a ski doo, a collection of videos. I always thought I was the kind of person that needed more from like. I was wrong. At the edge of a glacial sheet, four remote people tell their stories, and try to thaw their lives.

The Language of Love
Co-Writers: Ayumi Izuka, Doug Morency and Jim Clayton
Director: Chris Earle

When a forlorn ingenue meets a medium height and handsome’ish stranger at the zoo, can love be far behind? Classic…timeless…silly. A complete musical in under 20 minutes! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and then you’ll laugh again.

Tools
Writer: Shane MacKinnon
Director: Patrick Conner

Do more hair and a deeper voice make a person more of a man? If you want to know how a man will treat you, look at the way he treats his tractor.

Keyed
Writer: Dave Tomlinson
Director: Steve Morel

Booze. Boys. Bedtime. A misplaced house key becomes the catalyst for lost inhibitions between two friends who can’t decide which side of the late-night intimacy boundary-line they’d rather be on. Keyed takes a humourous look at the issue of infidelity and friendship between two thirty-something gay pals.

Kyke Kabaret
An Oleh Veh Shalom Production
Creator: Dov Mickelson
Co-Director: Michael Rubenfeld

Berlin, 1945. Exibit A: Do Not Touch the Glass. Abe and Izzy. Two Jewish cabaret comedians – Silver and Gold, find themselves in a glass prison. The last 2 Jews on Earth. A dark, dark dramedy with music that explores faith, humour, memory and redeption.

Come Sit on my Face of the Earth
Writer: David Bateman
Director: Cameron Esler

Through the character of drag queen Chi Chi la Nook, Come Sit on my Face of the Earth comically and poetically channels issues around identity, geography, weather and class in inner-city Calgary as it represents Canadian urban life during the 21st century’s only palindrome.

…This, Forward…
Writer and Director: Eugene Slonimerov

It’s about how everybody knows who you are. A second in a series in search of a holy, ritualistic, experiential theatre.

Love Among the Ruins
Writer: R. Kelly Clipperton
Director: Ed Sinclair

2043, the world is ending again. Should I stay or should I go.

Puppet Buffet We Don’t Serve Rat
Creators: Linor David, Noah Kenneally and Rachel Matlow

Like weeds growing in the cracks of the Rhubarb! sidewalk, these are the days of our puppet lives…Country/Western serenades, puppets in PVC, rabid vegetables, espionage and more espionage…come stuff yourselves silly.

Talkmen/Do you hear me?
Unit Theatre (Czech Republic)
Creator: Kristof Kintera

All of us are hiding thoughts under our clothes, skin and eyes. While three characters wait at a bus stop the sound of their thoughts spreads across.

Ugly Girl
Writer: Dave Deveau
Director: Shane Anderson

It’s always the ugly ones: the fatties, the ones with braces, with scars, burn victims, whatever, girls who really missed out on the looks; it’s always those ones up there alone at the bar. And always pretending not to be.

Pancake Tuesday
Writer and Director: Lindsay Price

When their company goes belly up, the bosses prepare to take the proverbial swan dive off the top of their office building. But not before they figure out if they’re writing notes. Or if Sister Mary Virginia was in the sixth or eighth grade. Or if they’ll bounce.

The Hurricane Project
Writer: Jennifer Fawcett
Director: Shari Hollett

One night on a highway as a storm approaches something happens: An act of love. An act of hope. An act of malice. The Hurricane Project is an exploration of the moment of change.

Provenance
Writer: Pierre Brault
Director: Brian Quirt

Artist, fraud, chameleon, victim. Elmyr de Hory was all of these, and arguably the most notorious, successful and prolific art forger of the twentieth century. About to be extradited from Ibiza to France to face charges of grand larceny after several decades of countless undetectable fakes and shadowy identities, Elmyr de Hory, at once the swindler and the swindled, finally reveals his own private truth.

I Know You
Creator: Halka Tresnakova

Three men – three lives – seven days – one play. Milos Lopatka, Matous Bouda and Rene Lavicka – three men live their own lives, each of them lonely in his own way. Unconscious encounters – in identical wishes and dreams; accidental encounters – on a Friday afternoon in the same bar; conscious encounters – in a memory mutually truth.

Stalker
Writer: Dawn Dumont
Director: Marion de Vries

What do you do when your best friend turns into your worst nightmare? A friendship turns into an obsession, when Lester decides that he knows Shelley better than herself, when he decides that must save her from herself.

An August Chill
Writer: Paul Moriaty
Director: Victor Correia

On the approaching one year anniversary of 9/11 a father learns more about his dead gay son.

Flag and Pile
Writer and Director: Sonja Mills

To be free or not to be free. That is (they’d have you believe) the binary question. Flag and Pile is NOT about exploitation! Not about profit! Certainly not about sex — my god, who said anything about that?! A comedy. A tragedy. A fucking lie. A show about denial. A show about deceit (and the dirty dogs who dish it). A little ditty for deb.

From the Waist Up and Down
Writer and Director: Jess Dobkin

From the Waist Up and Down invites audiences into a fantastic dreamtime where larger-than-life puppets and performers push through the boundaries of the waking world to explore community, sexuality and artistic expression. Come see what happens when our suppressed desires take center stage! Don’t miss the dreamy 36-DD boob puppets.

Joan
Text and Director: Sarah Phillips
Music by: John Millard
Performers: Christine Brubaker, Richard Greenblatt, Randi Helmers, John Millard, Karen Randoja, Dragoslav Tanaskovic

Domremy, France 1429: local girl causes quite a stir.

Medusa Moves
Deviser and Director: Kathy Walker

Medusa Moves presents a series of radical body sculptures. The art of stillness, endurance and gesture is used to present politically inspired ideas.

Port
Writer and Director: Daniel Karasik
Co-director: Glen Drutz Directorial
Consultant: Chris Dupuis

Two teenaged booys, strangers, meet in the airport waiting lounge. They both end up dead. Or perhaps only one of them ends updead. Or perhaps neither of them do. Or perhaps, two teenaged boys, strangers, meet in an airport waiting lounge.

Bebe
Creator and Director: Jennifer Capraru
Co-Writers: Erika Hennebury, Kiera Loughran, Ruth Madoc-Jones and Camille Stubel

In this modern day Lehrstuke, Capraru, Hennebury, Loughran, Madoc-Jones and Stubel use Brecht’s own Epic theatre tecniques to unmask his feminine side in life, work and love. Through poetry, song and drag, the brilliant women behind some of the greatest hits of 20th century drama leap out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

Phoenix
Creator: Stephen Lawson
Co-Creator: Aaron Pollard

Spectacle and epic gestures collide in an intimate setting of song and illicit tales. The Phoenix rises from a violent transformation, traversing gender and history in a distinctive new form by Montreal performance and video duo Stephen Lawson and Aaron Pollard.

where you are now
Writer: Kevin Rees-Cummings and Sean MacMahon (emergency exit)

NOTICE: tampering or unauthorized use, except in case of emergency, is punishable by fine or imprisonment.

Ruf Paradise
Writer: Alec Butler
Director: Greg Campbell

From birth ma know I was different. Growing up. I was taken for her son so many times. No worries, ma, just cause I’m a guy now doesn’t mean I’m a dick. Ruf Paradise is the story of a working-class, transgendered teenager growing up in the 70’s. Now Ruf tries to unravel the mysteries of his/her birth as intersexed.

Obedience
Writer: Robin Fulford
Director: Chad Dembski

Obedience to the experiment — conjecture, re-enactment and theory — three people in a room with their other selves — and the doors shut.

Escape from Alberta
Writer: Erik Jorgensen
Director: Darren O’Donnell

Escape from Alberta is a Theatre-Art piece drawn from a caustic misanthropy and self-entrapment. It is absurdist in nature. You are performing life, liar. Language and symbol surround you, commanding you actions, decisions… you pretend, a wooden-head marionette, to know what you are even thinking, for fear of losing the approval of your community, house, 8am porridge. You contemptible fool.

Catherine’s Pillow
Writer: Corrina Hodgson
Director: Alysa Golden

Rules are made to be broken — but by whom? And when? Catherine’s Pillow examines the agonizingly slow nature of change and human resistance to it. Prom night, a lover’s quarrel, a dozen eggs and a night of unrelenting rain all combine to create the perfect environment for progress’ first tentative steps.

Co-dependant Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
Writer: Madeleine Olnek
Director: Gina Kaufmann

Lesbian space aliens invade Earth, leaving in their wake a string of broken hearts, personal ads, and uneaten cheesecake. 1905’s sci-fi, B-movies, pop-psychology, and dating rituals are all taken-on in this heart warming comedy about the search for love. For anyone who has ever felt like they were from another planet.

10100
Deviser and Director: Istvan Kantor and Machine Sex Action Group

010100 explores the kinetic landscape of today’s hyper-sexualized trans-technological society dominated by its own self-annihilating system of information machinery. It investigates the language of new technology in reference to the dogmatic propaganda of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Kantar employs ecstatic corporal expressions, seizure-like orgasmic contractions, robotic machinery, video transmission and noise.

Untitled
Creator: J. P. Robichaud

An evening-long piece of performed sculpture. Untitled 2003 is John Patrick’s second performance for Rhubarb!

Asphalt
Writer: Meg Fearnley
Director: Aviva Armour-Ostroff

Two teenage girls find the only time that they feel real is when they are with each other. They intend to separate themselves from the superficiality of the rest of the world until one friend realizes that absolute faith in another being may be just as disilusioning.

Platypus
Writer: R.J. Downes
Director: Kathryn Malek

1 part father. 1 part mother. A dash of little girl. Blend. Add one six foot, three-hundred pound platypus and one young boy. Stir.

Nancy Drew (Without a Clue)
Concept: Anna Chatterton, Sue Miner, Evalyn Parry
Excerpts from Clue in the Fast Lane by Ann- Marie MacDonald and Beverly Cooper
Director: Sue Miner

A retro-rhubarb work, originally presented in 1984. Join Nancy Drew and her 1985 pal Janice the Babysitter on their wild, exciting and dangerous adventure through time where Nancy saves the world from near disaster. This is the chopped, tossed and remixed version of Clue in the Fast Lane.

Goodnight, Ladies
Writer and Performer: Diane Kolpak
Writer and Performer: Stephanie Lalor
Director: David Tomlinson

A break in. A break out. A break down. A couple of clowns. Shakespeare spinning in his grave. Lady Em should be medicated. Ophelia should be on the pill. This should be in imabic pentameter. Battling madness, these ladies aren’t going down without a fight.

Ah! But it Sings! But it Sings, Luveena
Creator: Fabian Boutillier
Director: Jennifer Tarver

A retro-rhubarb work, originally presented in 1980. Vintage Rhubarb at its best! Taste the intangible in this rollicking rollercoaster of language and sound. A play in an Act, Ante-act & Posterior.

The Counterfeit Marquise
Writer and Director: Kate Cayley
Adapted from: Charles Perrault

The Counterfeit Marquise is a transvestite puppet show. Adapted from a seventeenth-century fairytale, it tells the story of a young boy who grows up to be a beautiful girl. Using actors, hand puppets and shadow puppets, we follow her adventures through Paris as she seeks for true love and finds a surprising ending.

Green
Writer: Hope Thompson
Director: David Oiye

I’ve never met any of my husband’s friends so I am naturally very excited (and nervous!) about the reunion at Harry’s mansion and Mitchell, that’s my husband, says his friends are all very artistic so I just don’t know what to expect! (exhale) And then there’s this person they call Green.

Twisting For Peace
Writer: Michael Louis Johnson
Director: Mario Tenorio

On the brink of World War Three, activist and singer, Michael Louis Johnson takes on the corporate monolith. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a business plan, he says. This monologue tests the limits of free speech. Workshop readings had crowds dancing at Toronto’s Cameron House and Rancho Relaxo.

Night Terrors of the Longshoresman
Writer: Peter Lynch
Director: Ed Roy

A twisted little tale about a twisted little man and his adventure with agoraphobia, addictions, pot-induced dementia, A-FAGS, the welfare system and the struggles to get out of the door in the new millennium–a love song of the shut-in.

40 Tiny Performance Under a Red Light
Curator: Lisa Pijuan

Forty tiny potential platforms from which to launch forty tiny potent revolutions. All under the aureole of a red light.

Night’s Swift Dragons
Writer: Daniel Karasik
Director: Soheil Parsa

Night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast. But nothing lasts forever, which is why you should stop reading this right now and say something meaningful to your neighbor or someone nearby, or someone reachable by mobile phone. The play takes place on the moon, by the way.

When She Was Mad
Writer and Director: Laurie Fyffe

How deep into the past should we wander? Are we prepared for the discoveries that await us in the archives of our personal history? The lives of two women, one long deceased, the other not quite living in the present, connect over the centuries.

A Taste of the Danforth
Writers and Performers: Kathryn Haggis and Nikole Kritikos
Director: Ellen-Ray Hennessy

A Taste Of The Danforth is not just some fun-filled festival! At least not for stand-up comedienne Sophia Papadopoulos who quickly loses her sense of humour when fed a pita full of betrayal. A modern day Greek tragedy not to be missed! Medea, Elektra and even Ophelia, eat your heart out. Caution: show may contain professional wailing!

Murdering Godot
Writer: David Tomlinson
Director: Shari Hollett

A love story in wolf’s clothing. D – It was a joke. B – It wasn’t so much of a joke…as a lie. D – Saying the coast was clear. B – Like…it’s alright. Everything is fine. Trust us.

The Magic Key to Colourful Conversation
Writer: Peter Lynch
Director: David Oiye

A retro-rhubarb work, first presented in 1993. A fete-to-the-death. Four unspeakably charming, witty, attractive conversation types make best efforts to extend politeness, correctness and bon-mots. But is it better than their efforts to destroy one another. Find out.

‘Bini
Writer and Performer: Mirha-Soleil Ross
Director: Nicole Stamp

Mirha-Soleil Ross picks up a few fragments from her childhood and takes us on a ride with a caravan of colorful characters. Detailing her grandfather’s tragic relationship with alcohol, she offers hilarious insights into growing up poor in the Quebec of the early 70’s and speaks to the importance of honouring memory and of reconciliation.

A vs. B
Writers: Mariko Tamaki & Lindy Zucker
Director: Allison Rees-Cummings

As the old Jewpanese proverb goes: savage wound will clot in time but savage word has no watch.

An Excerpt from Church Street Blues
Writer: Chris Jai Centeno

Church Street Blues is about a gay teen who searches for acceptance in the face of his parent’s definition of what gay is.

An Excerpt from Trans-ition
Writer: Adrian Jr. Daniels

15 years old and so close to being pushed off the edge.

Radio Play
Writer: Peter Chapman

A retro-rhubarb work first presented in 1980. We can see seeing but we cannot hear listening. (Marcel Duchamp) I beg to differ (Peter Chapman). A choral recital for transistor radios.

(Oh Nest) Honest Insanity
Writer: Helen Posno

A retro-rhubarb work first presented in 1980. Honest Insanity: One Woman’s error-serrated edge on toxic waste.

Psycho Nuclear Breakdown
Writer and Performer: Cynthia Grant
Video: Chris Clifford

A retro-rhubarb work first presented in 1980. This landmark performance art piece captivated audiences when it premiered in the Danforth space of the Theatre Centre in 1980. Created in the wake of North America’s worst nuclear accidents, Three Mile Island, the piece layers the writings of anti-nuclear physician, Helen Caldicott, with post-Freudian notions of psychological despair in the face of devastation. A study of distress in a toxic age…

Daniel Brooks and Guillermo Verdecchia
A conversation with the creators of the Noam Chomsky Lectures.

The Independent Theatre Trade Forum
Co-presented: The Toronto Theatre Alliance

Join us for breakfast and engage in discussion about the following topics: The Independent Theatre Agreement, Touring, Non-Traditional Performance Space, The Role of Criticism, Show Transfers: An indie company’s rights when co-producing with a larger theatre company.

eight o’clock
Writers: emergency exit, Kevin Rees-Cummings and Sean MacMahon

rejuvenating! awe-inspiring! terrifying! 5 nights only!!!

Leo
Writer and Director: Rosa Laborde

Set in Santiago, Chile during the violent coup d”etat of 1973, LEO follows the events leading up to a pleasure-centered young man’s disappearance as he explores his sexuality and political uncertainty in a time of assassinations and revolution.

I’d Kiss You But…
Writers: Wendy White, Victoria Ward and Diane Flacks
Director: Ruth Madoc-Jones

A retro-rhubarb work, first presented in 1990. In the spirit of Retro, we take you back to 1990 when Rap was new, Thirty-Something was the show to watch and Q107 ROCKED!!! I’d Kiss you But…, originally performed by it’s three writers Diane Flacks, Victoria Ward and Wendy White, is back with a new cast of actors performing the same wacky characters that made this hilarious romp the hit of the 1990 Rhubarb! Festival.

Spaceman 2459
Writer and Director: Dennis Frey

It’s the year 2459. The Earth is over-populated and esurient. Three intrepid adventurers rocket through the cosmos to find a new planet for mankind to harvest. An a cappella space opera for three voices. Proudly presented by Canadia dell’Arte.

A Visitation of St. Teresa of Avila upon Constable Margaret Chance
Writer: R.M. Vaughan
Director: Moynan King

A retro-rhubarb work, first presented in 1996. Police Constable Margaret Chance thinks the world is out to get her. She just might be right. You decide.

Record
Writer: Christian Lloyd
Director: John Gordon

Gary is creating the record of a lifetime. Before the needle scratches the surface, the collected dust needs a good cleansing.

She Sends Her Regrets
Writer: Christina Jol
Director: Veronika Hurnik

The table is set, the guests have arrived, but Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today. These are not peaceful times.

People Are Horrible Wherever You Go
Writer and Performer: David Bateman
Writer and Performer: David Roche
Director: Michael Achtman

A retro-rhubarb work, first presented in 1994. Literary ladies of a certain age Elvira (David Roche) and Magda (David Bateman) find themselves in a tight spot while visiting a revolution-torn southern land. Uneasy companions at the best of times, the long-term couple pay a high price for freedom, but their efforts earn them a greater personal closeness.

Round Rotund Rumps
Writer: Richard Feren
Director: Steven Seabrook

A retro rhubarb work, first presented in 1994. A performance cartoon. We’re running a little behind.

The Noam Chomsky Lectures
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Daniel Brooks and Guillermo Verdecchia

Napalm
Writer: David Craig

Early Return
Writer: David Fraser
Director: Atom Egoyan

Manicure and Set – Am I Beautiful Yet?
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Deb Kirshenbaum and Julia Pal

No More Medea
Writer and Director: Deb Porter
Performers: Victoria Shafelberg, Siobhan McCormick, and others

An Act of War
Writer: Diane Cave
Director: David Jansen
Performers: Hume Baugh, Catherine Jackson, Allyson McMackon, Dwayne Stevenson, and Stan Rogal

I’d Kiss You But…
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Diane Flacks, Victoria Ward and Wendy White

Strip
Writer and Director: Elliott Hayes
Performer: Andrew Binks

Sailors
Writer: Garth Barriere

Spa
Writer and Performer: Glenn Christie
Director: Kirsten Johnson

Mr. Bleakman’s Oratorio
Writer: Grant Carmichael

Lies of the Vampire
Writer and Performer: Greg Kramer
Director: Lee Van Paassen

France
Writer and Performer: Greg Morris
Director: Paul Bettis

The Panel
Writer and Director: Hillar Liitoja
Co-Writer: DNA Theatre
Performers: Ed Fielding, Rosalba Martini, B. Bob Bridges, Sara Clenyg-Jones, Adrian Foster, Deborah Verginella, Daniel Deller, Sarah Galea-Davis, and Peter Lynch

Poking Grey Matter
Writer and Director: Jill Rosenberg
Performers: Philip Shepherd, Alexandra Z., Allyson Woodrooffe, Paul Z., and Jamie Johnston

The Character of Gentleman
Writer and Performer: Kim Renders
Director: Robert Lindsay

Brangst
Writer and Performer: Liza Balkan
Director: Micheline Chevrier

A Brood of Doves
Director: Orly Wasserzug
Writer: Death Waits
Performers: David Collins, Sian Cansfield, Greg Campbell, and Sabin Fella

Enemas in Toyland
Writer and Performer: Peter Lynch
Director: Edward Roy

Aretha Kissed Me
Writer: Robert Pennant
Director: Corey Reay
Performer: Cliff Saunders

Salvation with a Vengence
Writer: Stanley Katz
Director: Lynda Hill
Performer: Katherine Bruce

Subway Philosophy
Writer and Performer: Susan McLay

Excerpts from the Ten-thousand-year-old Woman
Writer, Director, and Performer: Cheryl Cashman

Gilligan’s Thailand
Director: Darren O’Donnell
Writer: Death Waits
Performers: Wendy Agnew, Jesse Shankland, Clinton Walker, Eleanor Yeoman, and Phillip Nessel

Hot, Hungry and Horny
Writer and Performer: David Roddis
Director: Corey Reay
Performer: Norm Reynolds

Slow Thunder
Writer, Director, and Performer: Diane Flacks
Co-Writers, Co-Directors, and Performers: Victoria Ward and Wendy White

Creatures Like Us
Writer, Director, and Performer: Edward Roy
Performers: Daniel MacIvor, Anne Holloway, and Ellen-Ray Hennessy

Fergus, Ontario
Writer and Performer: Glenn Christie
Director: Kirsten Johnson
Performers: Sigrid Johnson and Valerie Buhagiar

Crime in the Wilderness: Gutter Utterings
Writer and Performer: Helen Posno
Co-Writer and Performer: Mark Christmann

League of Nathans
Writer: Jason Sherman
Director: Ian Prinsloo
Performers: David Gow, Michael Healy, Alex Poch-Goldin, and Sam Aaron

Chaos
Writer and Director: Jordan Patterson
Co-Director: Kelly Thornton
Performers: Colleen Brady, Beth-Ann Little, Pamela Wilson, Martha Ferguson, Stephen McGurk, and David Sinclair

Quantum Kumquat and the Chaos Game
Writer and Director: Laura J. Forth
Performers: John Alcorn, Petra Chevrier, Michael Fitzgerald, Tracy Hway, and Peter Jarvis

Blonde
Writer: Mary Lou Zeitoun
Co-Writer: Sara Meurling
Director: Linda Balduzzi Performers: Leni Parker, Nadine Falk, and Julie Choquette

Summer Snapshots
Writer and Performer: Michael Totzke
Director: Rex Buckle
Performers: Philip Eckman and Gary Crawford

Dead Man’s Penis
Writers and Directors: Mike Erskine-Kellie and John Erskine-Kellie
Performers: Jonathon Wilson and Moynan King

Scorched Earth
Writer and Performer: Paul Couillard
Director: James MacSwain

Bubbles and Oblivion
Writer: Philip Cairns
Director: Alan Merovitz
Performers: Jacoba Knaapen, Frank Canino, Susette Schacherl, and Ian Algie

Sunny Boy Recites from Ego, Hunger and Aggression
Writer (adaptation) and Director: Stan Rogal
Performers: Angela Kaija, Adam Nashman, Susan Martin, and Gregg Anthony McLean

Hullaballoo
Writer, Director, and Performer: Susan McLay
Co-Writer, Co-Director, and Performer: Michael McGaraghty

Field
Writer, Director, and Performer: Darren O’Donnell
Co-Writer and Performer: Stephen Seabrook
Performers: Clinton Walker, Amy Tatian, Wendy Agnew, Marty McNally, and Sigrid Johnson

The Cubicle
Writer and Director: Ed Johnson
Performers: Jill Carter and Janet Sumner

The Secret Identity of Brigitta Von Trappe
Writer and Performer: Glenn Christie
Director and Performer: Kirsten Johnson
Performers: Bruce Beaton, Susan Davy, Martha Ferguson, Sigrid Johnson, and Virginia Roncetti

Flounders Last Tract
Writer: John Delacourt
Director: Sally Han
Performers: Donald Adams, Costin Many, Stewart Arnott, Daniel Chercover, and Julia Lenardon

Man
Writer: John Moore
Director: Colin Taylor
Performers: Michael Waller and John Welsgerber

Sharky’s Day
Writer and Director: Jordan Patterson
Performers: Alex Karzis, Kelly Thornton, Veronika Hurnik, Martha Ferguson, Kathryn Boese, and Tamara C. Bick

Terminal Lives
Writers and Performers: Juliet Daunt and Linda McKay
Director and Performer: Lila Cano

Sin City
Writer and Performer: Kevin O’Neill
Director: Booth Savage

For Every Clit a Name
Writer, Director, and Performer: Melinda Ramsay
Performers: David Walberg, Taylor Raths, Heather Doherty, Shannon McDonnough, and Bruce Marshall

The Importance of Being Beautiful
Writer and Performer: Moynan King
Director: Jonathon Wilson

The Washroom Suite
Writer and Performer: Paul Couillard
Director: Conrad Alexandrowicz

Dot
Director: Phillip Nessel
Writer and Co-Director: Death Waits
Performers: Jesse Shankland and Christofer Williamson

Try Me
Writer: Robert Dodds
Director: Jordan Merkur
Performers: Steve Cumyn and Catherine McNally

What It Is
Writer: Sandy Senko
Director: Andy Parks
Performers: Walter Boscorial and Wendy White

Ain’t That a Shame
Writer and Director: Vernita Leece
Performers: Marium Carvell, Marcia Johnson, and Yvonne Francis

Kitten with a Krucifix
Writer and Performer: Victoria Ward
Director: Stephen Scott

Worm
Writer: Werner Krommus
Director: David Collins
Performers: David Young, Max Hancock, Bently Ball, Patrick McIntyre, and Clinton Walker

Endangered
Writer and Director: Anne Driscoll
Performers: Andrea Freeman, Tracy Goltsman, Anne-Marie Hood, Jane Spidell, and David Ian Matheson

Crystals, Karaoke and Cross-Border Shopping
Writer: David Allan King
Director: Vinetta Strombergs
Performers: Jeffrey Sarara, Jeremy Harris, Roger Sealy, Chris Johnson, Howard Rosenstein, Paul Couillard, Kelly McIntosh, Rob Close, Mark Burgess, Scott White, Paul Rivers, Shannon McDonnough, Kathryn Haggis, and Patricia Yeatman

Frog Family
Writer: David Rubinoff
Director: Lynda Hill
Performers: Lynne Dynes, Patricia Yeatman, and Michael Proudfoot

Anastasia Is Alive and Well and Lives with Her Brother the Czar
Writer and Performer: Glenn Christie
Director: Stephen Seabrook
Performers: Susan Davy, Kirsten Johnson, and Alex Poch-Goldin

Able Was I Ere I Tried
Writers and Performers: Helder Ramos and Adam Foord

Anne-Marie’s Bedroom
Writer: Jennifer Ross
Director: Edward Roy
Performer: Anne Holloway

Endless Smoke
Writer and Director: Kyle Tingley
Performers: Gayle Fraser and Jaie LaPlante

A Resting Place Denied
Writer: Mark Hondroyanis
Director: Rebecca Cann
Performers: Mark Ingram and Victoria Schaffelburg

Watermelon Sugar
Writer: Max Hancock
Director: David Collins
Performers: Patricia Baergen and Jeremy Harris

Simon’s Wife
Writer and Director: Moynan King
Performers: John Erskine-Kellie and Deb Kirshenbaum

Breeding Drum Majors
Writer, Director, and Performer: Nadia Ross
Co-Writer and Co-Director: Diane Cave
Performers: Ed Fielding, Earl Pastko, Mark Shields, Geoff Wiebe, and Professor Colin Visser

The Magic Key to Colourful Conversation
Writer: Peter Lynch
Director: David Oiye
Performers: Steve Cumyn, Dean Gabourie, Veronika Hurnik, and Kirsten Johnson

Gentleman Caller
Writer: R. M. Vaughan
Director: Hugo Dann
Performers: Greg Campbell and Kim Renders

Soup
Writer and Director: Rob Kenter
Performers: Katherine Bruce, Ed Fielding, Max Hancock, and Susan Kealey

The Death of Simon Bellyitch
Writer and Director: Robert Maynard
Performers: Alex Appel, Deborah Cher, Bruno Miguel, and Rose Saldutto

Gulf
Writer and Director: Stan Rogal
Performers: Michael Holmes, Bill Kennedy, Selina Martin, Peter McPhee, Adam Nashman, and Lisa Ryder

Erostratus
Writer (adaptation) and Director: Bruce Beaton
Performers: Mackenzie Gray, Adam Bramble, Sean Carthew, Ken Delaney, Robert Eaton, Mariea Syrgiannis, Robin Haggerty, Kaya McGregor, Lucia Ribeiro, and Evan Sabba

Radio Rooster Says That’s Bad
Writer and Performer: Darren O’Donnell
Director: Andrew Kines Performer: Gabriel Roddy

Forty-nine Performances under an Orange Light
Coordinator: Darren O’Donnell

People Are Horrible Wherever You Go
Writer and Performer: David Roche
Co-Writer and Performer: David Bateman
Director: Michael Achtman

Missing
Writer and Director: Franco Boni
Performers: Rod Arsenault, Adam Bockneck, and Jeff Forsythe

The Straight Man
Writers: Gordon Foster and David Nicholson
Director: Jim Jones
Performers: Adrian Churchill, Peter Lynch, and Peter Rintoul

Tea and Croquet
Writer: Hugh McClaren Evans
Director: Mackenzie Gray
Performers: Alan Bridle and Vanessa Walton

Dirty Underwear
Writer, Director, and Performer: Joey Meyer
Performers: Kaya McGregor, Kathleen Pritchard, Rochelle Hum, and Jessica Runge

The Perfect Pie
Writer: Judith Thompson
Performer: Anne Holloway

Edam
Writer and Director: Kelly Thornton
Performers: Alex Poch-Goldin, Sandy MacMaster, Katherine Ashby, Karen Jako, Martha Ferguson, and Helder Ramos

Consent and Other Myths
Writer: Lee Jones Director: Conrad Coates
Performers: Ron Kennell, Christy Cameron, Savoy Howe, Shannon McDonnough, Roy Cameron, Sharon Forrester, and Susan McLay

Carteggio
Writer and Performer: Lidia Cancelliere
Director: Natasha Bloomberg
Performers: Carol-Anne Vachter and Shanna Miller

Open Wounds
Writer, Director, and Performer: Mark Johnson
Performer: Greg Kramer

Girls in Gangs
Writer: Mary Lou Zeitoun
Co-Writer: Sara Meurling
Director: Laura J. Forth
Performers: Edith Tankus, Sheri Astorino, Kelly McIntosh, Hamish McEwan, and Francisca Zentilli

Intermittent Silence: The Death of Simon Bellyitch, Part Nine
Writer and Performer: Park Bench
Performer: Alex Appel

The Time of Cake
Writer: R. M. Vaughan
Director: Anne Driscoll
Performer: Eleanor Yeoman

Round Rotund Rumps
Writer and Performer: Richard Feren
Director: Stephen Seabrook
Performers: Rochelle Hum, Veronika Hurnik, Joey Meyer, and Justin C. Roddy

Member’s Only
Writer: Robert Pennant
Director: David Oiye
Performers: Greg Campbell, Greg MacArthur, Greg White, Angela Moore, Christopher Sawchyn, and Savoy Howe

Cheating
Writer: Bruce Dowbiggen
Director: Matt Walsh
Performers: Robin Harvey, John Tench, and others

TBD (A play)
Writer: Charlotte Freedlander

Gina Lollabrigida
Writer: Fabian Boutillier
Director: Jerry Ciccoritti

TBD (A play)
Writer: Maureen White

Love without Arnold
Writer: Sky Gilbert
Director: Amanda West Lewis
Performers: Maureen White, Doug Barnes, and others

TBD (A play)
Writer: Vincent Kamberk

Countess de Kitchen
Writer: Daniel Sloate

Villon and the Fall of Constantinople
Writer: David Leicester

Yellow Ribbon
Writer and Director: Jeanne Dielman (a.k.a. Jerry Ciccoritti)

Nightmare
Writer: Robert Sherwood

Jungle Boy
Writer: Sky Gilbert
Director: Jerry Ciccoritti

Five Poems for Antigone
Writer: Terrence Seaman

Passing through a Full Moon
Writer and Director: Barbara Wright
Performers: Maureen White, Sheila MacKay, Philip Cairns, and Caroline Wuschke

Psycho Nuclear Breakdown
Writer, Director, and Performer: Cynthia Grant

At the Café
Writer, Director, and Performer: Dave Johns
Performers: Dianne McLennan, and Rebecca Applebaum

Ah! But it Sings, But it Sings, Luveena
Writer: Fabian Boutillier
Director: Amanda West Lewis
Performers: Sky Gilbert, David Ellis, and Paul Rapsey

Take a Canadian Author to Bed Tonight
Writer and Director: Helen Holden

Soft Boiled
Writer, Director and Performer: Kim Renders
Director and Performer: Maureen White

Gently Down the Stream
Writer and Director: Kim Renders
Performers: Maureen White and Cynthia Grant

Phone Calls to J.D. Salinger
Writer: Sky Gilbert
Director: Linda Pakri P
erformers: Paul Robertson, Rosemary Madill, Ronda Crowdis, and Philip Cairns

Love of Feet
Writer and Director: Sky Gilbert
Performers: Michael Hovey and Guy Lefebvre

Oedipal Shorts
Writer and Director: Sky Gilbert
Co-Writer and Co-Director: Guy Lefebvre

Object/Subject Nausea
Writer, Director, and Performer: Cynthia Grant

Dirt Is My Profession
Writer and Performer: David Roche
Director: Bob White

This Is My Face
Writer: Fred Besselink

(Oh Nest) Honest Insanity
Writer: Helen Posno
Director: Stephen MacKay
Performer: Sky Gilbert

Soft Boiled II
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Kim Renders and Maureen White

G
Writer and Performer: Kim Renders
Co-Writer: Cynthia Grant
Performers: Mark Christmann, Donna Bothen, and Ken McDougall

The Best of Myles
Adaptors: Mary Durkan and Maureen White

Ten Seconds after Closing
Writer and Performer: Mary Vingoe
Director: Cynthia Grant

One-Niner-Six-Niner
Writer and Performer: Paul Robertson
Co-Writer and Director: Linda Pakri
Performers: Philip Cairns, James Falcon, and Alar Aedma

Radio Play
Writer and Performer: Peter Chapman
Performers: Maureen White, Sky Gilbert, and Helen Posno

No Play; or, The Oriental Influence on Me
Writer and Director: Sky Gilbert
Performers: Maureen White, Kim Renders and Peter Snell

Jaundice
Writer: Adam Morton

Self Castigation
Writer: Barbara Wright

King of the Alley Shuffle
Writer: Barbara Wright

Gat: A Piece for a Woman and a Gun
Writer and Director: Bill Zaget
Performer: Bridget O’Sullivan

Excerpts from Fiction
Writer: Burke Campbell
Director: Sky Gilbert

À La Dada
Writer and Performer: Cynthia Grant
Co-Writers and Performers: Judy Shiner, Lisa Napoli, Kenn Quayle, Victoria Stoeckle, Kim Renders, Mark Michasiw, Gerald Rybak, Chris Pinker, Bob Naismith, and Peter Chapman

Stage Poems
Writer: Daniel David Moses

David Roche Talks to You about Love
Writer and Performer: David Roche
Director: Bob White

Elevator
Writer: David Type

Romance
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Dean Gilmour and Michelle Smith

Moon Landing
Writer: Doug Durand

Communicant
Writer, Director and Performer: Helen Posno
Performers: John McLachlin, Stephen MacKay, and Natalie Olanick

Coming Out
Writer: Jacques LePlant

Current Event Think Tank
Writer, Director, and Performer: John Tench
Performers: Jennifer Capraru, Andrea Fredrickson, Ward Maxwell, and Julie Asterik

The Domain
Writer and Performer: Jon Austin
Co-Writer: Kim Renders
Directors: Cynthia Grant and Don Bouzek

Mask-ing Tape
Writer: Kim Renders
Performers: Maggie Huculak and Mark Christmann

Idaho Kid
Writer and Director: Lorne MacDonald
Performer: Kathy Kinchen

Twelve Poems for Three Voices
Writer: Mary Vingoe
Performers: Victoria Stoeckle and others

Crossfire
Writer: Neil Cadger

Rats on the Roof
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Paul Robertson and Ken McDougall

The Dunce
Writer and Director: Sky Gilbert
Performer: Neil Cadger

The Magician Sees (A Film Performance)
Writer: Stephen Nibloch
Performer: Jennifer Capraru

Laugh in Etre
Writers and Performers: Victoria Stoeckle and Judy Shiner
Director: Chris Pinker

Garden Exit
Writer, Director, and Performer: Alan Risdill

The Accelerator
Writer: Bill Zaget
Director: Charles Murdoch
Performers: Catherine Vaneri and Bryden MacDonald

Bareback
Writer and Director: Bryden MacDonald
Performers: Carolyn Dunn, Daniel Allman, and Kevin Jollimore

Motokind
Writer, Director, and Performer: Cecilia Varga

Wallpaper
Writer: Dan Zanbilowicz

Bedtime Stories
Writer, Director, and Performer: Daniel Brooks

Callas Live
Writer, Director, and Performer: David Roche
Performer: Sky Gilbert

The Heart Connection
Writer: Dianne Korchynski
Director: Steve Eadie

Anna Livia Pluabelle
Writer and Performer: Donna Bothen

Personae Non Gratae
Writer, Performer, and Videographer: Doug Durand
Co-Videographer: Colin Campbell

Requiem for August
Writer: Helen Posno
Director: Svetlana Zylin
Performers: Kirk Scott, Fern Rogers, Douglas Palmer, and Mary Hawkins

Pound II Pound
Writer: Hillar Liitoja
Performers: Linda Brokenshire, Philip Cairns, Jackie Fox, Helen Havgreaves, Diarmid McLaughlan, Carol Nawrocki, and Leslie Toth

Painting Mrs. Cavendish
Writer: Jaimie Yeotes
Director: Anne-Margaret Hines
Performers: Martha Hirst and Ronda Kristie

American Demon
Writer: Jan Kudelka
Director: Kate Lushington
Performers: NION (Ian Wallace), Maggie Huculak, Theresa Tova, and Svetlana Zylin

The Wedding March
Writer and Director: Jim Millan
Performers: Ken McDougall, Alexandra Brown, Blake Carter, Susan MacLeod, Rosie Kutrara, and Siobhan McCormick

Anarchy
Creator and Performer: John Lambert
Co-Creator and Performer: Jim Warren

Soft Boiled III
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Kim Renders, Maureen White and Cheryl Cashman

Notes on a Tumor
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Kim Renders and Christopher Thomas

I Wish I Was a Wizard
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Michael Ross and Tony Molesworth

They’re at the Void, They’re Dung
Writer: Robin Fulford D
irector: Susan Potvin

When I’m Being Oscar Wilde
Writer, Director, and Performer: Sky Gilbert
Performer: David Roche

Dadd
Writer: Tim Wynne-Jones
Director: Ken McDougall
Performers: Ian Gillespie, Blake Carter, and Steven Gee

Bedtime Stories II
Writers, Directors, and Performers: Victoria Stoeckle and Chris Clifford