Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Artistic Director ted witzel is prepped and ready for the upcoming 25-26 season.

From his website: thisisnttaedon.com/bio, ted is a queer theatre-maker and artistic leader. He holds a Master of Arts in Management from SDA Bocconi and an MFA in Directing from York University and the Canadian Stage. Primarily, he is a director, but he has also served as a dramaturg, curator, teacher, writer, translator, designer, and performer. ted has worked with theatres and cultural organizations across Canada, the UK, Germany and Italy. ted’s artistic directing style is described on his website as:

“fusing high-octane performance, rigorous dramaturgy, digital aesthetics, and poetic text, ted’s directing is located at the intersection between the personal and the political, and the (visceral, emotional, intellectual) frictions between them.”

This description is something I will watch for when Buddies 25-26 starts up in September.

I wanted to schedule an email conversation with ted, who was more than happy to chat. His schedule didn’t allow for a call, but I was pleased when he was able to return answers to the questions I had asked.

He proudly mentions how his grandmother had a significant influence on his artistic career. ted does not come from an artistic family, but his grandmother was really the one who introduced him to art and took him to the theatre when he was seven. She didn’t take her grandson to children’s shows. What does he remember most about this time with his grandmother? He received one-on-one attention from her. She was so supportive of ted’s choice to enter the artistic life when very few people in his family thought ted was making the right choice.

He says about his grandmother:

“She created a lot of space, and I’m sure she worked on my parents to acclimatize to the idea that I wasn’t going to do something more ‘legitimate’ with my life.”

Like all artists whom I’ve profiled over the last five years, ted is keen to share those who have held a strong influence on him, his artistic career and work as an Artistic Director.

The late Daniel Brooks was someone who guided both how to navigate the performing arts sector and work with institutions in terms of real depth, thoughtfulness and care. Daniel brought these qualities out plus a sense of rigour into the theatre practice that ted has been searching for out of the various theatre schools.

Kim Collier ran the Masters program ted attended at Canadian Stage. He calls Kim a wizard in terms of how an [artist] gets the most out of limitations of the Canadian producing structures. Collier taught ted how to prepare as a director in that one must also think like a producer.

Brendan Healy from Canadian Stage continues to mentor ted: “[Brendan] was the one who created a space for me to really take the fullest advantage of what making work at Buddies can do.

Outgoing Stratford Festival Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino is another influence. ted mentored with Antoni in artistic direction and leadership and seeing how an AD can stand in the middle of a deeply complex and sprawling group of stakeholders, while making everyone feel heard. Ultimately, Antoni taught ted about holding the realities of leadership as well – in other words theatre magic has to happen on limited budgets.

With the proud assertion he’s in theatre because he hates working in isolation, ted finds the writing is probably his least favourite part of the theatrical form. It has to be done alone. He’s where he is because the theatre is the place where he found collectives of weirdos who wanted to work together, and ted thrives from that collaboration. ted proclaims one of his biggest skills as a director and leader is his ability to see his role as a synthesizer. He can bring a lot of ideas together and help steer a group in choosing which ones feel most aligned with the values of the theatre project or the space in which the piece is created.

ted hopes that budgets and value of the arts don’t continue a trend of underestimating the audience’s appetite for adventure. Artists and audiences are often more intelligent than the general society gives them credit for, and often smarter than they give themselves credit for. His goal and ambition for Buddies is to cultivate a sense of curiosity. The ingredients are there. It’s about re-gathering and re-building an audience excited about risk.

The theatrical art form continues to draw witzel back continually. What ted loves about the theatre is the fact it’s so bad at reality. Before the advent of cinema and photography, the theatrical form was deemed perhaps the most realistic medium. It’s why one sees the impulse towards naturalism emerge in the late 1800s with Émile Zola. But with the theatre today, it’s free to go back what ted thinks it’s actually best at: abstraction, metaphor, image and poetry. ted calls himself in reality a storyteller and that each of us is one as well, but storytelling is not unique to theatre.

For ted, what theatre does:

“is hold the contradiction between creating magic and revealing the mechanics of that magic and finding a new magic in pulling the curtain away. I find that really exciting. I love when the elements of the theatre are in contradiction with each other and create new truths by undermining both truths simultaneously.”

The best kind of theatre for ted? It operates like it hits an audience member (or performer) in the head, the heart and the guts. It’s intellectual, it’s emotional and visceral for him.

Our conversation then turned to the upcoming 25-26 season at Buddies.

For the 24-25 season, ted focused on interdisciplinarity with the thematic: ‘queerness is divine mystery.’ He was interested in collisions between high and low art forms such as the queer underground and the artistic mainstream. This is one of the interesting tensions in which Buddies exists.

The 25-26 season thematic is ‘these are the things we longed for.’ The longing in the 25-26 season is a longing for bodies, a longing for touch, a longing for intimacy, and a longing for intimacy. In building the season, ted started to perceive a kind of longing inside each of the pieces in different directions. The one thing in common between the four main stage pieces this year is that they’re all quite poetic with a little bit more emphasis on the literary. The texts are disarming, destabilizing that are bewitching and enchanting.

Text is a major player for the 25-26 season:

‘The Green Line’ written and directed by Makram Ayache, opens September 25, 2025. In Arms Theatre Company in association with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and Factory Theatre.

‘The Herald’, written and directed by Jill Connell, opens March 5, 2026. An It Could Still Happen production in partnership with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

‘Kainchee Lagaa + Jhooti: The Begging Brown Bitch Plays’ written by Bilal Baig and directed by Tawiah M’Carthy, opening April 2, 2026. A House of Beida and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre co-production

‘take rimbaud’ written by Susanna Fournier and directed by ted witzel, opening May 7, 2026. A Howland Company production in partnership with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

‘Nuit Blanche’ Alphabet Soup October 4, 2025

Bijuriya’ Created and performed by Gabriel Dharmoo running November 26-29, 2025

‘Make Banana Cry’ Created by Andrew Tay and Stephen Thompson running January 14-17, 2026

Rhubarb! 47 Festival Director Ludmylla Reis running February 4-14, 2026

As we concluded our online conversation, I asked ted what else he is up to outside the theatre season.

He still thinks about the theatre and will do some travel. Part of the work he’s really excited to be doing at Buddies is leveraging its unique position as the largest and one of the oldest queer institutions in the world, particularly during this frightening political moment. witzel is keen to build networks around this theatre and connect with queer companies globally to ensure that queer Canadian artists are well-represented and adequately resourced on the global stage.

He also added an aside that made me smile: “So, you know, just a few plans for world domination in the mix.”

Visit Buddies in Bad Times website: buddiesinbadtimes.com.