a ‘real talk’ confessional compiled from assorted conversations
between Buddies Curatorial Team (ted witzel + Erum Khan),
creatively composed by Susanna Fournier
***
I often feel embarrassed at the theatre.
[The worst feeling in a theatre is being embarrassed for the work].
When you’re sitting there — idle — and you feel embarrassed for the actors
and the strangers next to you. And sure, some of that’s me, like
where’s that coming from? But no.
This is a feeling I keep feeling.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the puzzle of how every time you do play, there’s a serious risk of alienating people from ever going to the theatre again. Like, nobody who hears a bad song is like, That’s it. I’m done with music. But some people see a bad play and they will never fucking go to the theatre again.
So every play, every curatorial act, can either build or destroy trust with an audience.
[Shit]
It’s now past the borderline of insulting when you know the new framework for making and marketing work has become [insert identity] or [social construct] that was hard to go through.
It’s no longer, what’s the piece about?
It’s become, what are the themes?
[Oh… misogyny and racism, with projection]
Collectively artists / funders / organisations have made this argument for theatre’s essential value from a moral place (it makes you a better person). When I see work designed to create this ‘Canadian moral outrage’ in me (or steer me to a specific political response), it drives me fucking crazy. Because it takes away my freedom inside of the experience to align my emotions, personal conflicts, and ideas.
We’re trying to program work which isn’t just embedded with queer storylines, but that reimagines queerness all together. Formally. Thematically. Aesthetically.
Work that challenges our audience — challenges us.
As curators, we’ve been tasked with making sure a certain quality, coherence, and readability for an audience is available to them. When we’re loyal to a space / venue / company, it’s because we trust its mandate and curatorial angle. We’ve been entrusted to guide Buddies audiences through what we’ve deemed to be the most essential queer work of right now. It’s also our job to not mislead audiences with work that is not going to create meaning for them.
It’s a very active thing, curating.
[A lot of talking]
Kind of like being a lawyer, a champion, but also someone who’s challenging the work at the same time. Curating requires rigour because you’re fighting for understanding why you’re drawn to a piece of work and why it deserves a platform.
You’re both building and interrogating your case.
At its most reductive, curation is just choosing shit and scheduling it.
[And making sure you get the money to do that]
At its most artful, curation is about many more things.
[Who and what do you centre in that process?]
Are you centering artists? Are you centering audiences?
Ideally, you find a way to centre both [in different ways].
You also have to know how to read / exist within / and talk about work.
Not like, This is good. This is bad.
But there’s a cumulative process of making and experiencing a lot of work that develops into a language and set of references you bring to curation. It’s also being in dialogue with the season you are cultivating and the values of the organization.
Liberation.
Audacity.
Artistic Rigour.
By centering these values, we have a metric for considering work. So, if one of us is bringing a piece forward for consideration, we know it’s gonna score high in at least two or three of these values. If an artist is pitching their work to Buddies, we’re going to read it through the lens of these values. Not just in its content, but in its form and creative processes.
Now there’s a new AD at Buddies, there’s been a tsunami of artists wanting to share their work with us and get it programmed at Buddies — which is great —
[but]
I’m tired of being asked to program work that takes psychological naturalism as its emotional or storytelling language. Or — just because there’s queer characters in something doesn’t mean it belongs at Buddies. Because that’s pedantic to our audience.
That’s basic. That’s boring.
Sorry. But.
No, it’s boring.
[Queerness in the plot points]
[Making me watch something that could have been a movie]
[Grant applications on stage]
It’s boring.
We start with work that is exciting to us individually.
That’s always going to be the first spark.
We approach our task with an interest in form.
We’re drawn to work that features nuance and skill in playing with tone and genre.
We’re interested in more than just a great text.
We’re looking to be inspired by a new world.
We want to program things [whether a nightlife event, a podcast, a play, a dance work, a festival, a drag show, a fundraiser] that makes us ask,
How are we fucking up this space and how we understand it with something else?
How are we bringing queerness and creativity into collision with each other?
How are we challenging norms and social taboos?
How are we liberating / liberated by the work?
What are we conjuring?
How are we entering this universe together?
ted witzel + Erum Khan + Susanna Fournier
ted witzel and Erum Khan are, respectively, the Artistic Director and Artistic Associate of Buddies. Susanna Fournier is a writer and theatre maker.
It’s true that no one has ever given up on music because of one bad song. But they do give up on music venues that continually deliver bad concerts. Or on ones that promise music and deliver lectures and sermons instead.
No one will give up on theatre because of your programming, but they might give up on Buddies.
Pingback: I want my work @ Buddies. How does that happen? — Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
Yeah, I saw White Muscle Daddy as my, should I ever go to Buddies again, gambit. I went to Rhubarb a number of times, hated it all, someone dancing around a piano, really – and I do like modern dance. The crowd loved White M Daddy – but why? A vampire play or was it a movie – it was hard to tell – never been a fan of the technology being more interesting than what is on stage. Were we supposed to look at the huge screen with the lips not synced to the sound (well it never can be in real time right), or the puny actors in front of the screen. We were drawn to the film right? So really it was not a play, it was a film. So yes, I said I would never go to Buddies again.
By the way I’m in the 60’s plus demographic. Many of us have more money than younger people. And I like a good play. Why don’t you just put on good plays that have incidentally gay characters? Nothing wrong with that. Instead we get someone’s idea of queer culture. There is actually no such thing. We are all kinds of different people. Don’t attempt to tell us who we are! Yeah I might go to another Buddies play just to see. And seeing White Muscle Daddies hasn’t stopped me going to the theatre, I have a few subscriptions. I guess you just don’t want my patronage.
On a positive note, I applied to three of Buddies programs and to your credit you gave everyone that applied a short Zoom interview. Wow! Amazing! I applaud you for that. I’m not pissed I did not get selected. You claim to represent some sort of queer theatre, but I guess not my version. Still bravo that you spent time with each of us that applied. That really is special.