Toronto is one of the world’s premiere centres for live theatre and performance. From big-budget Broadway musicals to independent plays to classical music, opera, and ballet, Toronto has much to offer the theatre-goer. Global Alliance is your preferred chauffeured transportation service for any of Toronto’s exciting theatrical extravaganzas, so allow us to take you to and from the show in style, comfort, and luxury. Here are a few renowned theatres putting on high-quality live contemporary plays in Toronto.
Factory Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille
Housed in a historic former Victorian townhouse at Bathurst Street and Adelaide Street West, Factory Theatre has mounted new plays exclusively written by Canadian playwrights since 1970. Attracting upwards of 50,000 theatre lovers each year, the Factory is an anchor facility in the active theatrical district on the west side of the downtown core. The theatre’s Mainspace seats 200 patrons, while the smaller Studio Theatre seats 100 and allows developing plays to be workshopped and fine-tuned before full public premiere. The nearby Theatre Passe Muraille (housed in a turn-of-the-century former bakery at 16 Ryerson Avenue) has a similar mandate of developing and producing fine Canadian contemporary theatre.
St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts
Owned by the City of Toronto, the St. Lawrence Centre on Front Street East is located in the historic district of the east downtown core from which it takes its name. Constructed in the 1960s for Canada’s Centennial, the St. Lawrence Centre has been the main venue for the acclaimed productions of the Canadian Stage Company (CanStage) for over 25 years. The Centre’s main theatrical space seats 876 people and is named for local arts activist Bluma Appel. The Bluma Appel Theatre customarily hosts five CanStage productions per year. The company also stages plays at the nearby Berkeley Street Theatre, a historic building dating to 1887, as well as the popular Dream in High Park Shakespearean productions during the summer at a 1,000-seat outdoor amphitheatre in High Park.
Young Centre for the Performing Arts
Built in Victorian-era buildings in Toronto’s Historic Distillery District, the Young Centre for the Performing Arts opened in 2006 after a lavish and innovative multi-million-dollar refurbishment and redesign. Home to the Soulpepper Theatre Company, the Young Centre is the venue for Soulpepper’s new productions of classic plays by heavyweight writers of modern theatre such as Pinter, Coward, Beckett, Stoppard, Ibsen, Chekhov, and more. The Young Centre is also the home stage of the theatre school of George Brown College, and public productions of the theatre school are also frequently mounted there.