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Toronto has to many theatres?

M

miketoronto

Guest
Do you guys think Toronto has to many live venues, and that we should stop building new ones till the old ones fill up?

I went on an tour of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre(the last double decker operating theatre in the world), and the guy giving us the tour said that sadly nothing is booked in for the Winter Garden Theatre for the year.

Yes one of the most amazing theatres in North America, is going to sit empty all year. The Elgin will have a couple shows, but overall the theatre centre is not being fully used.

Yet at the same time, we have George Brown building a new theatre in the distillery, a new opera house, etc. All while the last operating double decker theatre in the world sits empty half the year or more??

Should we not be using the theatres we have and ensuring their survival before building new?????

If anyone has a chance, go on the tour of the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres. It is an amazing complexe, and Toronto is lucky to have it. We really should put it to more use.
 
Yea we kinda have too many, if anything they should turn the old ones into new ones, like reno them, I personally liked what they did with the "Blue Man Group" theatre, before it was reno'd it was disgusting outside and in.
 
we should stop building new ones till the old ones fill up?
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Who is we? We being the City of Toronto? We being the Ontario Heritage Foundation? We being Mirvish and company? Which we is it that you want to prevent from building, expanding, or renovating theatres in Toronto?

Is it a GTA Wide ban? What if Hamilton wants a theatre -- are they too close?


Elgin could always go back to doing what it did in the 70's; showing B movies and soft-core porn.
 
Who is we? We being the City of Toronto? We being the Ontario Heritage Foundation? We being Mirvish and company? Which we is it that you want to prevent from building, expanding, or renovating theatres in Toronto?
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Good point. I don't believe there are any effective laws in the city of Toronto regulating the number of theatres we can have. It's pretty much an open market.
 
Mike does have a point, though he may not have worded things perfectly. Im sure if the Elgin and Wintergarden were slated for demolition, we'd be sitting here wondering why someone couldn't find some use for them.
 
Mike does have a point
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Agreed. It is not necessary for the City of Toronto to fund further theatre development within the city. That is, we don't need to actively encourage development.

I don't think we want to actively discourage theatre development though if private firms feel they need a new space for their own.
 
You can sometimes see great shows in the most unlikely of places.

On Friday night I went with friends to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Etobicoke School of the Arts ( don't ask, somewhere out west ... ).

Oberon, King of the Fairies, was played by the handsome Sebastien Heins. He has great delivery, great stage presence, and got to wear the best costume. Phil Nozuka, as Puck, stole the show though, dashing around in a tight bright red caped number with matching ears and mauve legs. He truly inhabited the character and made it his own. Darwin Lyons-Fisher, who played Helena, was in full command of the wide range of emotions her part demands, fending off both Lysander and Demetrius after they've both been slipped the love drug. The scene where Titania, also drugged up to her eyeballs, falls for Bottom was a hoot. In fact Titania's fairy women were all stroking Bottom at one point in the evening. Quite disturbing. Most of the actors and dancers looked to be about fifteen, sixteen or seventeen. Drugs, dancing, wrestling, sex, and wild music - a great night out in old Etobicroak.

And the language! That Will Shakespeare! Lordy, could he write!

In fact I enjoyed it every bit as much, if not more, than the National Ballet's Balanchine night on Wednesday - even taking into account Guillaume Cote's surprisingly queenly take on "Apollo".

Phil Nozuka or Guillaume Cote? Both win the prize.
 
The Elgin and Wintergarden Theatres remain empty for the majority of the year because of Heritage Ontario (the owners of the facility). They have prevented any production company that ever tried to lease the theatres on a long term basis from doing so. Mirvish sought to secure a lease on the facility for programming purposes (like they currently have with the Canon Theatre) but was denied. Garth Drabinski's now defunct Livent was also hoping to secure a long term lease on the facility but was also denied. Rumour is, they like to have it empty to keep upkeep costs down.

It truly is a beautiful facility, but because of the government's unwillingness to relinquish managment of the theatres to professionals who know and understand the business, they have decided to keep the theatre as a centre for the odd tour of stomp or umoja.

Toronto doesn't have too many theatres...not enough if you ask me. There are a ton of theatre companies with no home. Maybe the Elgion should look to these companies.
 
rbtaylor that remark about the Elgin is very disrespectful to one of our great landmarks.

Well maybe the city and ont gov should be promoting the theatre more to fill it up. Because according to the guy giving the tour, there just is no bites for people wanting to use it.

And it is a shame. Why not approach the smaller theatre companies in the city, and advertise the place??
 
rbtaylor that remark about the Elgin is very disrespectful to one of our great landmarks.
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Sometimes history sucks but in this case it is fairly significant. It's what the last owners did: B-movies and soft-core porn. If the owners didn't find that use for the theatre there is a very good chance it would have been demolished.

A building without a profitable use is a lot waiting to happen.

Look at the Uptown Theatre. The government forced them to upgrade the place to become wheelchair accessible or close up. The owners opted to close shop, sell the place off, and now it's gone. The whole 'an employee will help you with the escalator' thing they tried was funny though.
 
Should the government promote more theatre before or after they start promoting downtown? or would that be after they alter and add to the bus routes in Scarborough?

Or is that because promotion is free, right?

Hey Mike, I agree with you that the theatre's are wonderful and yes, the should be occupied more...and maybe, just maybe the fraking panasonic theatre shoudln't exist. But this issue is a little larger than the a government intervention.
 
"Look at the Uptown Theatre. The government forced them to upgrade the place to become wheelchair accessible or close up. The owners opted to close shop, sell the place off, and now it's gone. The whole 'an employee will help you with the escalator' thing they tried was funny though."
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The new wheelchair assesibility regulation wasn't the real reason they closed...just a convenient excuse. Famous Players was closing smaller 1-3 screen theatres for a while, since they supposedly don't provide as much profit as megaplexes like Paramount...which is unfortunate. Cinemas like like the Uptown, Runnymede, etc. had an atmosphere these new ones just can't match.
 
The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre actually makes a profit, as they rent out space to schools.

However they could make more if the theatres where used more.

It just seems like a waste of two great theatres.
 
Okay, deal. We tie miketoronto up and take him to see the Scandelles live at the Winter Garden. And keep him tied until his pants stink of feces and he starts babbling like a Guantanamo torture victim
 
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