Funding the Future

Buddies is required to be on your donation list... Think about it, a queer theatre that's been around as long as Buddies that's thriving? Nowhere else in the world. MAGGIE CASSELLA, COMEDIAN

Diplomatic Immunities
Darren O'Donnell

Through a number of experiences this year, we have recognized the greater need for Buddies’ raison d’etre – as a force of enlightenment and change, not just within the theatre community, but in the world outside our walls.

Beginning in 2007/2008 we will take Buddies' unique brand of creativity and community-building beyond our home at 12 Alexander Street.

CONNECTING WITH A NEW NEIGHBOURHOOD

DJ Cozmic Cat

As we become more involved in producing Performance Creation based work, our need for a rehearsal and workshop space will continue to grow and become critical in a few seasons.

The need to connect with the edgy Queen West queer crowd suggests that acquiring a second venue in the Queen West area would open us up to a whole new audience base who would certainly click with the new directions of creation which we have been exploring.

In 2007/2008 we will be looking at ways to take the Buddies' concept to the west end bringing a whole new dimension to what we do.

REACHING OUT TO RURAL CANADA

The Rural Project is community outreach to a very different community. This project stems very specifically from the sabbatical that Producer Jim Lefrancois took and the realizations he came to through his time in small town Manitoba.

Located as we are in the largest metropolitan centre in Canada, in the heart of the gay village and bombarded with headlines declaring Canada as one of the most progressive countries in the world for LGBT rights, Play Murder
Ellen-Ray Hennessy and Ed Roy it is very easy to find ourselves working in a bit of a queer positive bubble.

Once we step outside of that bubble we realize that geographically, 90% of the country lives cloaked in homophobia. For all our advancements in the urban centres, our queer counterparts in rural communities have little to connect with.

They lack role models, resource contacts and conduits to the larger queer community which exists only in the cities. We have often talked about touring as a way to get our work out to a broader audience, but we have now begun to talk about touring Buddies work in a social context, to educate and enlighten, as well as enabling us to reach out to queers living in smaller centres.

At the end of the 2007/2008 season we are planning to support a tour of Cheap Queers following our Pride Festival to larger regional communities. Centres such as Guelph and Sudbury, while still requiring outreach, have queer support groups and systems which will allow us to source out contacts within the community to help set up public performances and to access local queer performers to be part of the show. The next stage of the project is to look towards the more isolated communities. Areas where there are no LGBT drop-in centres or queer community groups. Here we would be connecting with perhaps a handful of individuals who may be living in complete isolation.

However, a large part of the initiative is not only to be preaching to the converted. We want to look at putting together a programme that will invite a straight audience in to experience queer perspectives perhaps for the very first time, outside of mass media such as Will and Grace and Brokeback Mountain. This won’t be an easy process, but it is one that we feel is very important and intrinsically tied to the mission of our theatre.

GIVING THE BUDDIES' EXPERIENCE TO THE WORLD

With its mandate to promote queer culture (defined as both LGBT and challenging the mainstream), Buddies is a unique entity in the world and we want to make the Buddies' experience available to as many people as possible. We want to reach out not only to other parts of the city and the country but to the rest of the world as well and our newly reconceived website has proven to be the ideal way to do this.

The Buddies' website, Artsexy.ca , now includes original creative content that is conceived and produced by the same talents and personalities that you find at Buddies' throughout the season. Click here to see Keith Cole's The Stars are Ruined.

This is just the beginning – as we go forward, more and more content will be available for viewing from commissioned films and ‘week in the life’ clips that depict behind the scenes at the theatre, to thoughts and prose written by artists and associated personalities (it may be art talk, or opinion pieces on queer or arts related current events). Eventually, Artsexy.ca will take on a life of its own and anyone, whether they're in a small Canadian town or on the other side of the planet, will be able to participate in the creativity and community that thrives at Buddies.