“I’m a bit of a hybrid when it comes to art making. I think most people are, in this economy, needing to wear twelve creative hats to stay alive.”

As one of the participants in this year’s Rhubarb 47! Festival, Katie is a playwright, filmmaker, poet, drag artist, and the marketing manager at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

Recently, I had the chance to speak with them via email about this year’s Rhubarb! celebration.

According to Katie, Rhubarb! has become an important part of the Toronto and Canadian theatre canon:

“[It’s} the starting place for so many incredible works and artists, and it’s the longest running festival of Live Art in the country, living in the walls of the largest, longest running queer theatre in the world. Past Rhubarb! Festivals have featured the emerging works of now-iconic artists, including Hannah Moscovitch, Sook-Yin Lee, Daniel MacIvor, and more. It remains an urgently needed, unreviewed experimental space where artists can explore the edges of things without fear, especially amid ongoing funding cuts to arts programming. “

Katie’s work as an artist currently explores the idea of trans and chronically ill time and intimacy. They have been writing and directing for theatre since 2019 — of their second play, Halifax theatre critic Amanda Campbell wrote, “it is clear from [Clarke’s] eloquent monologues that Clarke is a talented writer and a playwright of promise.”

Their Rhubarb! piece is I DESERVE TO FEEL GOOD, an experiment in poetics and new kinds of prayer. This work-in-progress explores landscapes of guilt and shame in a sick trans body and the rituals and relationships that inscribe or excoriate those feeling-places.

 “When they were younger and a repressed transsexual, Katie completed a degree in Psychology and Contemporary Studies in Halifax as a Loran Scholar and chronic overachiever and now considers themselves a recovering girlboss. Their undergraduate thesis on Foucault, domestic violence, and women’s incarceration, co-authored with BL Shirelle, was published in Hypatia, a leading feminist philosophy journal.”

 A part-time theatre kid in high school and always a writer, Katie started making theatre more earnestly in their undergraduate years:

“I co-wrote/co-directed/co-produced a few shows in Halifax with very little training and the truly unmatched power of making things with friends who see you in all your big missteps and small glories. I’ve done some apprenticeships and had mentorship from incredibly talented and generous directors and playwrights in Halifax and Toronto, including Ann-Marie Kerr, Andrew Kushnir, and Chelsea Woolley. I also occasionally work in the film industry as a script supervisor. I’ve made music videos, scrappy DIY documentaries, and I wrote and directed my first fancy short film with the Atlantic Film Cooperative’s Film 5 program in 2023 – 24.”

 Clarke is now a baby producer, and is producing The Unfamiliar Everything, a project in residence at The Theatre Centre by lead artist Stewart Legere and a whole cohort of incredible queer artists from across the country.

Katie is now interested in making something that is always hybrid and always slow.  They don’t know what genre of thing they’re making right now, but they’re excited to find out.

On the Rhubarb website, the following statement is intriguing:

“Rhubarb! is Buddies at its rawest: a hotbed of unruly creatives queering what it means to make and experience art.”

Clarke says the hotbed is what makes Rhubarb! magic. Some of the works programmed might feel grotesque, unruly, or uncomfortable. Because this festival is so much about developing new works, Katie feels this description captures the reality of making things — it is not always pretty, pleasant, or easy on the eyes. At Rhubarb!, one gets to witness the stickiness of making. You get to climb into that creative process (but then you get to leave).

There’s also ‘well-crafted chaos’ throughout these next three days of celebration. I asked Katie to explain how chaos can become well-crafted:

“This makes me think of Festival Director Ludmylla Reis’ meticulous planning process. They think of everything. Every part of the Rhubarb! experience, from the audience path through the building, to the work they program and in what order, to the kinds of snacks at industry events, to the fidget toys they put out at the entryway (I could go on!), is specific and intentional. At the same time, a big part of their programming ethos is that they are choosing works that are not easily defined in genre, and the unfinished nature of many of the pieces means that they might go in unexpected directions on the night.”

Rhubarb! is indeed unique and unlike any other experience in the theatre canon. One show might feature audience participation with unpredictable outcomes; another might be a sound installation that plays on a loop, and an audience member could choose to stay with that piece all night rather than engage with the other works. It’s choose-your-own-adventure/chaos for both the audience and the artist alike.

There’s so much over the next three days that Clarke is excited to talk about. One of the works they’re excited for is Watch Me by Lucy Coren and Neveah May, which is livestreamed on OnlyFans. It’s an exploration of the labour of sex work and care, and they’re excited to see how the digital medium will play with the audience’s relationship to their own spectatorship and the stickiness/discomfort they may find in that.

Another is Wrath Month: Louder Than Pride, a QTBIPOC-focused, punk-focused alternative show. Katie can’t remember seeing a show like this in the Buddies space in recent years. The show is intentionally positioned in contrast to corporate, sterilized, white-washed, homonormative Pride Month events. There is no sanitizing this queer rage/lust/joy/grief. It will remain unruly, and Clarke remains so excited to witness it.

Of note for Clarke is Our Rhubarb! After Dark events (late night programming after the live art wraps up on Friday and Saturday), which are also incredible — Men Explain Things to Us… and We Like It! is a ‘70s-style late night show by iconic theatre creators Dasha Plett and Gislina Patterson (We Quit Theatre), livestreamed from Winnipeg. This is a trans take on a heavily gendered medium — combining old digital camera footage with a kind of drag sensibility and, of course, the late-night talk show. Clarke anticipates that something unforeseen will grow from this abundance of organic materials.

Once the Festival concludes, what’s next for Katie:

“I’ve been wanting to create work about my relationship with guilt and shame for a long time, and I’ve tried on a variety of mediums (poems, screenplays, rolling around on the ground). I DESERVE TO FEEL GOOD is a first draft in front of an audience. I think I will probably get sick after. In March, I’ll be pulling on this same creative thread at a Residency at Gibraltar Point called Undisciplined: The Residency facilitated by Mic Jones and Kelsey Whyte.”

 To learn more about Rhubarb! 47: https://buddiesinbadtimes.com/show/rhubarb-festival-2026/ & follow Buddies on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buddiesTO/.