Bucs eye a “dark” theme with 2025’s “On Display”

All it took was two words from staff and music coordinator Paul Cullen, in an address to Reading Buccaneers corps members, to have artistic coordinator Nicholas Tavares’ mind racing. 

According to Cullen, the second he spoke the words in question at an early-season community performance in 2024, Tavares whipped out his phone and began feverishly typing.

Tavares corroborated the story; the two words that sparked his imagination were simple. Cullen had made it clear to the corps’ members that they were “on display.”

“I said, ‘Gang, you look fantastic,’” Cullen said. “‘But you now need to remember that you are on display, and everyone will be judging you for who you were, who you are, and who you will be.’”

“I have a note in my notes app,” Tavares added. “It's just stuff that sticks out to me as inspiration for future show ideas. The second (Cullen) said, ‘You're on display,’ I wrote it down on my note.”

Tavares' note didn't go unnoticed; it landed directly in the hands of the corps' design team, who embraced the concept. “On Display” became the title of Reading Buccaneers’ 2025 program — the vehicle for its second season as part of DCI’s new All-Age Class heading.

 

“On Display” takes two different meanings for the Buccaneers, and the corps’ designers plan to meld them together seamlessly. 

From a literal perspective, “On Display” invokes the performative nature of the drum corps activity. At any given moment, each individual performer is being watched by someone, whether it be a staff member in rehearsal, a judge on the field, or a fan in the audience.

On a more philosophical note, though, “On Display” also offers a commentary on the nature of modern culture. 

Through social media, and other technological methods, human beings’ lives are more visible to those around them than ever. 

“We sit on social media,” Cullen said. “We get recorded at the ATM. We get recorded at the gas station. Everything is watching what we do, and whether we agree to it, whether we're aware of it, it's always going to be there. 

 

As of the winter, the corps is still in the early stages of its design, but one thing is clear from the visual end of things — in some shape or form, there will be windows. Buccaneers’ designers want to have some type of boundary between performers and audience members, but one that can still be seen through all the same. 

“There is a boundary that we're performing to, and it's preventing us from branching out and having our own identity, which for us is going to be depicted by these larger-than-life windows,” Tavares said.

On the musical side of the design, Reading Buccaneers’ vision is still coming into focus.

There aren’t specific titles the corps is prepared to share at this point in the process, but its design team did use a few specific descriptors when discussing the overall music program it has planned.  

Describing it as “dark” is a start, but it’s not the full picture.

“We wanted a dark show,” Cullen said. “But dark is way too vague, way too ominous. We did want something that was in minor keys. We did want something that was, at points, atonal. We wanted unresolved chord progressions. We wanted things that literally made the audience uncomfortable.”

 

According to Tavares, one of the goals of Buccaneers’ design team tends to be providing a high-quality production that audiences can easily immerse themselves in from the very start.

“We want something where our audiences are going to be able to see our show description and be like, ‘Hey, cool, I want to see that,’” Tavaraes said. “And then when they watch it, they can appreciate it in its totality.”

That’s not necessarily changing in 2025. But according to Tavares, the goal for this season isn’t for audiences to simply sit back and relax during the corps’ performances. 

“We wanted our audience to walk away from this year thinking, ‘I'm really uncomfortable, and I really want to see that again,’” he said. “‘On Display,’ essentially, is diving into what it is to never have privacy, always feeling uncomfortable, like something is innately watching you.”

“(Cullen) and I always love the dark story, the villain winning,” he added. “So, that's the vibe that we want to present this year, too. At the end of the day, you can't escape being watched.”

While plenty of the corps’ show is still under wraps, Reading Buccaneers have exciting plans to reveal further information in the near future. According to designers, fans can keep their eyes peeled to Buccaneers’ social media accounts as more of “On Display” comes into focus.

VIEW READING BUCCANEERS 2025 TOUR SCHEDULE

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