ANNOUNCING THE 25.26 SPRING SEASON WORLD PREMIERE:
TAKE RIMBAUD
by Susanna Fournier
Directed by ted witzel
A Howland Company production in partnership with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
On Stage this Spring: May 6-23, 2026
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
12 Alexander Street
Toronto, ON
TICKETS:
$10* / $25* / $45 / $75 + fees
*Limited availability. Book early to secure this price tier.
ABOUT:
“This is why I quit art.”
Toronto, 2014 / Paris, 1871 / hell, always
Four poets, a sloppy love triangle, an unfinished art film, and an electric oven. Can we still talk about the apocalypse as if it hasn’t already happened? It’s 2014 in Toronto (hell) and 1871 in France (also hell). The poets torture themselves to make work that means something rightnow, but time feels slippery and no narrative can keep them safe. Nevertheless! Sappho’s brand manager has suggestions for her website, and queerness is really marketable right now. Especially if the queers in question are already dead.
A performance poem traversing the worlds of Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Sylvia Plath, Sappho, and post-art school malaise, TAKE RIMBAUD by Susanna Fournier flirts with creation, revolution, and violence at the end of the world.
“There are ambitious independent theatre-makers and then there’s Susanna Fournier.”
– The Toronto Star
CREATIVE TEAM:
playwright: Susanna Fournier
Susanna Fournier is an award-winning Canadian theatre-maker, writer/director, and educator. She’s best known for her adventurous performance texts, interdisciplinary productions, and that gig she had in X-Men. Susanna’s company, PARADIGM productions, produced her acclaimed trilogy, The Empire, as a full season of theatre, a radio-drama podcast, and a complete anthology published by Playwrights Canada Press. Other theatre texts include PYPER, Next Time I Die, HEART/BODY, take rimbaud, Always Still the Dawn, and her rave-play, antigone lives*. As an educator, she’s a guest artist at Toronto Metropolitan University, Etobicoke School of the Arts, Randolph College, and Cawthra Park Secondary School. This fall, she’ll direct her first short film, MYA’S OK. Find her at susannafournier.com
director: ted witzel
ted witzel (he/him) is a queer theatre-maker and artistic leader based in toronto / tkaròn:to (these days). primarily a director, ted is also variously a dramaturg, curator, teacher, writer, translator, designer, and performer. he has worked with theatres and cultural organizations across canada, the uk, germany, and italy (she gets around).
fusing high-octane performance, rigorous dramaturgy, filthy homosexuality, 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.
previous Buddies credits: artist-in-residence 2014-18 with LULU // aspects of a femme fatale, the scavenger’s daughter [2019], taylor mac’s holiday sauce (the afterparty) [2020], roberto zucco [2024], current Buddies’ artistic director.
ABOUT OUR PARTNERS: BUDDIES IN BAD TIMES THEATRE
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is the world’s largest and longest-running queer theatre. For 46 years, Buddies has carved out a sexy, disobedient edge in Toronto’s theatre scene and has been a world leader in amplifying queer voices and developing their stories for the stage. In its year-round theatre season, Buddies is a home for artistic risk — a place where emerging talent hone their radical visions, and where established artists do the daring works other theatres might shy away from. Since 1979, Buddies has welcomed over a million audience members and premiered over a thousand new works for the stage.
TAKE RIMBAUD is produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
take rimbaud promotional photo of Susanna Fournier. photography + creative direction by Fran Chudnoff, styling by CC Calica, makeup by Rahnell Branton.
photo of Susanna Fournier by John Bregar.
photo of ted witzel by Alejandro Santiago.
The Howland Company 