World City Guide

Culture

Although Toronto has a reputation as a place of business, it has much to offer the visitor interested in soaking up some local culture – notably its vibrant theatre scene. Toronto has the third most theatres of any city in the world, after London and New York, showing everything from high-budget musicals to experimental fringe theatre.

Toronto’s role as the cultural capital of English-speaking Canada is also evident in its major performing arts companies, with ballet, opera and the symphony all well represented during a season that generally runs from September to April. Foremost among the many classical music companies who play at Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe Street (tel: (416) 872 4255; website: www.roythomsonhall.com), is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Further east, the Hummingbird Centre for the Performing Arts, 1 Front Street East (tel: (416) 393 7469; website: www.hummingbirdcentre.com), the largest multi-use facility in the country, is home to the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada, as well as numerous touring acts.

The Toronto International Film Festival is world-famous – now the second largest in the world, after Cannes – but is only one of dozens of annual events and festivals that celebrate the diversity and creativity of Toronto’s citizens in a variety of media.

In addition to the daily newspapers, the free weeklies, NOW (website: www.nowtoronto.com) and eye (website: www.eye.net), have listings for major events and obscure fringe offerings. Tickets for most cultural attractions can usually be bought through Ticketmaster Canada (tel: (416) 870 8000; website: www.ticketmaster.ca). Tickets for many of the big musicals are available from TicketKing (tel: (416) 872 1212 or (800) 461 3333; website: www.ticketking.com) or in person (Tuesday–Saturday 1200–1930) from the T.O.Tix half-price ticket booth, at the southeast corner of Yonge Street and Dundas Street (tel: (416) 536 6468; website: www.totix.ca).

Music: The Toronto Symphony Orchestra (tel: (416) 872 4255; website: www.tso.on.ca) performs over 125 concerts every year at Roy Thomson Hall (see above), attracting guest performers of international acclaim. The Canadian Opera Company (tel: (416) 363 8231; website: www.coc.ca) has received growing audiences in recent seasons. The city has, for several years, been investigating plans to build its own opera house. For now, however, opera can be appreciated at the Hummingbird Centre (see above).

Theatre: The city’s Theatre District is focused on King Street West, slightly north of the CN Tower. Built in 1907, the Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King Street West, is an old, spacious Victorian theatre that shows musicals along with the occasional piece of serious theatre. The nearby Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King Street West, shows similarly popular fare, generally bringing touring versions of major West End and Broadway shows. Both venues are run by Mirvish Productions (tel: (416) 593 0351; fax: (416) 593 9221; e-mail: info@mirvish.com; website: www.mirvish.com) and should be booked through TicketKing (see above). The Canon Theatre, 263 Yonge Street, restored to its exquisite 1920s design and for many years the Toronto home of Phantom of the Opera, is now also a part of the Mirvish stable.

For a more local flavour, the Poor Alex Theatre, 296 Brunswick Avenue (tel: (416) 923 1644), is one of the best venues offering innovative new theatre. The Tarragon Theatre, 30 Bridgman Avenue (tel: (416) 531 1827; website: www.tarragontheatre.com), specialises in new Canadian writing. The St Lawrence Centre for the Performing Arts, 27 Front Street East (tel: (416) 366 7723; website: www.stlc.com), is home to the Canadian Stage Company (tel: (416) 368 3110; website: www.canstage.com), producers of modern Canadian plays and productions. Near the waterfront, the Du Maurier Theatre, at the Harbourfront Centre, 231 Queen’s Quay West (tel: (416) 973 4000; website: www.harbourfront.on.ca), was built as an ice house in the 1920s but was renovated into a modern theatre, showing musicals alongside more serious pieces, in 1992.

Further information on drama in the city is available from the Toronto Theatre Alliance (tel: (416) 536 6468; website: www.theatreintoronto.com), which represents over a hundred local companies.

It is worth getting out of the city for two of the country’s most important theatre festivals – the Shaw Festival (website: www.shawfest.com), held in Niagara-on-the-Lake (see Excursions), and the Stratford Festival (tel: (800) 567 1600; website: www.stratfordfestival.ca), in Stratford, two hours’ drive southwest of Toronto. As the name suggests, the focus at the Stratford is on the works of Shakespeare, although the repertoire also includes more recent works by Canadian and international playwrights like Albee and Chekhov.

Dance: The National Ballet of Canada (tel: (416) 345 9686; website: www.national.ballet.ca), the country’s best known dance company, finds its home in Toronto at the Hummingbird Centre (see above). The company’s most popular show is the annual Christmas production of The Nutcracker. One of the best spots for Canadian and international contemporary dance is at the Harbourfront Centre, 231 Queen’s Quay West (tel: (416) 973 4000; website: www.harbourfront.on.ca).

Film: In recent years, Toronto has gained the nickname ‘Hollywood North’, due to the large number of American films that are shot on its streets and in its buildings. Around 40 American feature films are shot in Toronto every year. Recent successes include Angel Eyes (2001), American Psycho (2000) and X-Men (2000). A number of television series, including the US version of Queer as Folk, are also filmed in the city. Among the films where Toronto actually plays itself are The City (1999), Forever Knight (1992) and Exotica (1994), directed by University of Toronto alumnus Atom Egoyan. Honeymooning couples might want to avoid the noir-ish Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotton thriller, Niagara (1953), although the spectacular falls do compensate for the acrimony between the newlyweds.

Every September, Toronto is flooded with celebrities and film types; patios are overrun with bruschetta and canapés, as film buffs line up to see major releases and arthouse works from around the world during the Toronto International Film Festival (tel: (416) 968 3456; website: www.e.bell.ca/filmfest).

As far as seeing a film in Toronto goes, it is customary for one to purchase tickets at the cinema, which means arriving early if the film is likely to sell out. Seating is always done on a first-come, first-serve basis. Cineplex Odeon (website: www.cineplex.com) and Famous Players (website: www.famousplayers.ca) operate the vast majority of Toronto’s mainstream cinemas, with locations throughout the city. The Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West (tel: (416) 516 2330; website: www.bloorcinema.com), is popular for arthouse and more obscure international films. Cinémathèque Ontario, at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West (tel: (416) 923 3456; website: www.bell.ca/cinematheque), shows a mixture of English-language and subtitled films.

Cultural events: Still known to may Torontonians by its former name (Caribana), the Toronto International Carnival (website: www.torontointernationalcarnival.info) is the city’s annual summer celebration of Caribbean culture and is one of the largest cultural events in North America, attracting hundreds of thousands of people. Taking place in the last two weeks of July, the festival features parades, extravagant costumes, food and music. Late June sees the Pride Week gay and lesbian celebration, culminating in the over-the-top Pride Day Parade (website: www.torontopride.com), one of the largest in the world. Summertime also sees the annual Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival (website: www.tojazz.com), which brings famous jazz acts from all over the world to the city’s concert halls and bars, in late June. The International Festival of Authors (website: www.readings.org) takes place at the Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queen’s Quay West (tel: (416) 973 3000), in late October. The festival attracts authors both local and international for readings, lectures, talks and awards.

Literary Notes
Toronto is home to two of the English-speaking world’s most talented and well known writers, Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood. Not surprisingly, their home city features directly in much of their literature. Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion (1987) follows the early history of Toronto, including the building of the Bloor Street Viaduct and the R C Harris Waterworks. Atwood’s Cat’s Eye (1988) also finds the city as its setting, telling the story of a woman painter returning to Toronto for a retrospective of her work, which brings on a re-examination of her own and her city’s past. Other famous Torontonian writers include recently acclaimed Anne-Marie MacDonald, whose Fall on Your Knees (1996), a story of love, abuse and incest on Canada’s east coast, won the Commonwealth Prize, and Anne Michaels, whose Fugitive Pieces (1997) tells the story of an ageing Holocaust survivor’s life and friendships in Toronto.

The famous American author, John Irving, has a particular fondness for Toronto, spending much of his time in the city. His novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), is concerned with a private school for girls in Toronto. And it was also in Toronto that a young American writer, Ernest Hemingway, got his big break – as a journalist on the Toronto Star.