Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia
Gilbert, Sky
Openly Gay playwright/actor/director based in Toronto, Ontario , who has fundamentally changed critical/spectatorial/artistic approaches to Canadian Gay and Lesbian theatre. Born Schuyler Lee Gilbert Jr. in Norwich, Connecticut in 1952. He studied at York University and the University of Toronto.
Co-founder and artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times (1979), he took the company, which at one time specialized in works by or about Gays and Lesbians, into its new permanent residence on Alexander Street. Along the way, the company began to redefine its mandate; Queer theatre became more all-encompassing, wherein the works of writers who were experimenting with form as much as character and plot, were presented at the theatre.
He is as reviled as he is respected. He once said, "I'm apariah in the Gay community...a thorn in the side of the conservative Gay community."
Mr. Gilbert also writes and directs film.
He has also acted on stage elsewhere, including at Saidye Bronfman Centre , Tarragon Theatre and Nightwood Theatre , among others. In 1987 he was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore award for his performance in The Edge of the Earth is Too Near, Violette Leduc.
Plays by Sky Gilbert include (directed by Gilbert unless indicated): Lana Turner Has Collapsed! (Theatre Centre, 1980), The Postman Rings Once ( Toronto Workshop Productions/TWP , 1987), Suzie Goo: Private Secretary (Buddies in Bad Times, 1991, winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award ), Play Murder (Buddies in Bad Times, 1993, nominated for the Chalmers Award), Strange Little Monsters (Buddies in Bad Times, 1995, directed by Edward Roy), Jim Dandy (Buddies in Bad Times, 1996) Schubert Lied (1998, Factory Theatre ), The Birth of Casper G. Schmidt ( One Yellow Rabbit , 2000).
An archival collection on this subject is available at the LW Conolly Theatre Archives at the University of Guelph, Ontario.
Last updated 2009-04-02
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