The Movements is a high-octane theatre/dance spectacular, and the economics class you never had in school. It’s a show about the global economy in the form of a precisely choreographed 90-minute workout routine. Accompanied by a soaring musical score and multi-layered video design, four (4) performers exhaust themselves, as they convert statistics into aerobic movement before your eyes. Covering everything from GDP and the WHO, to wealth inequality and inflation, The Movements examines the mind-boggling complexity of these hot topics in a way that is accessible and endlessly engaging.

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The Movements

The Theatre Centre

Northern Soul Horns are thrilled to announce the release of their highly anticipated new album, The Big Band Theory. Drawing deep inspiration from the legendary Sun Ra, this innovative album blends classic cinematic orchestration with soulful Jazz breaks, taking listeners on an otherworldly musical journey.

The Big Band Theory featuring Northern Soul Horns

It’s time to settle the score and see if you know enough facts to earn the number one spot! Come flex your Hip Hop and R&B knowledge at The Theatre Centre Café/Bar in Toronto, ON, Canada and we’ll see who’s really got the juice! Test your knowledge of your favorite artists, songs, and albums while enjoying great company and a lively atmosphere. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or just into the vibes of these genres, this event is perfect for you!

RAP SHEETS x DJ NANA

The Break-Up Diet was first performed as a forty-minute experimental piece on a short tour with Charles Spearin (Broken Social Scene) in 2018. It debuted as a full-length production at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2019 where it was awarded the Adams Award for best script. It received 5-star reviews from Now Magazine and was a top-six pick in the Toronto Star. The production then travelled to the Edmonton Fringe and played at The Paradise Theatre in Toronto in Jan 2020.

Break-Up Diet

Join us for a live staged-reading of Daughter by five different performers every night – you’ve never seen the show like this before!

A Fundraiser: Daughter by Adam Lazarus Performed by Anybody But Adam Lazarus

In response to the lack of affordable creative space in the City, The Theatre Centre is offering artists a chance to work in our building each night June 10-14, from 10PM – 8AM. The Night Shift will culminate in an optional community sharing on Saturday, June 15, 2024 at 11:59PM.

The Night Shift

Generator is proud to present our first-ever Spark Night! This social event for artist-producers is an opportunity to (re)-connect, plug into some industry conversations, and generally have a fun time. We’ll have lots of delicious complimentary food (including vegan and gluten-free options), amazing drinks for purchase at the Theatre Centre Café/Bar, and a special musical performance. Guests can also meet Generator’s new collective leadership team and hear about what we’ve been up to and are planning for the near future. Additionally, guests will get a peek into the Producing Spectrum research project led by our partners at Undercurrent Creations, which explores what performing arts producing can learn from abolitionist movements and theory. Whether you’re a longtime collaborator of Generator or new to our network, please join us! ASL Interpretation will be provided.

Spark Night

From the minds of Academy Award #WINNER Gordon Neill (on Lights) and multiple Canadian Comedy Award #NOMINEE Isaac Kessler – from 2-MAN NO-SHOW (★★★★★) starring Ken Hall – comes an artistic tour-de-force examining the question, “What is Theatre?” as only Isaac Kessler can.

1-man No-show

From early morning (00:00) May 15th to midnight May 15th (24:00), join us for 24 hours of Palestinian poetry. No registration. Come and go as you wish.  Join us to hear reading of the works of: Fadwa Tuqan, Dareen Tatour, Fady Joudah, Mosab Abu Toha, Mahmoud Darwish, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Rafeef Ziadeh, Hala Alyan, Refaat Al Areer, Ghassan Zaqtan, Mohammad El Kurd, Natalie Fasheh, Roula Said, Hani Morrar, Leen Amarin and Maysam Abu Khreibeh.

Marking the Nakba

On Saturday, May 11th, Crate Stories Live returns with an exclusive exploration into the life and music of the legendary Saukrates. Hosted by Toronto Rap Aficionado, Arcee, this intimate conversation will journey through the prolific career of Saukrates—from his groundbreaking early works in the ‘90s to the anticipated new single, “Driftin’”, produced by Gil Masuda and set to drop worldwide on May 17th, courtesy of Love Touch Records.

Crate Stories Live

Join us at The Theatre Centre, Franco Boni Theatre, May 3rd at 7:30 pm for a community play reading of ‘Eight Men Speak’ to draw parallels between censorship of pro-Palestinian artists, and the ongoing arrests of pro-Palestinian organizers in Toronto.

Community Reading: Eight 'Men' Speak

The Theatre Centre presents Eucalyptus and Yansi Alexavier Quintet in the Franco Boni Theatre! Eucalyptus is led by acclaimed saxophonist and composer Brodie West. Yansi Alexavier Quintet draws inspiration from Lester Bowie and Don Cherry, but presents their modern and unique twist.

An Afternoon of Jazz

A party at a remote cottage, only accessible by boat. A storm. A power outage. A murder! The twist? Only two guests showed up. With the host dead, it should be pretty obvious pretty quickly who the killer is.

Murder with No Mystery: A Murder Mystery

Fady Joudah’s powerful sixth collection of poems opens with, “I am unfinished business,” articulating the ongoing pathos of the Palestinian people. A rendering of Joudah’s survivance, […] speaks to Palestine’s daily and historic erasure and insists on presence inside and outside the ancestral land.

Fady Joudah Book Launch for [...]

Meet Margaret Cavendish, 17th-century philosopher, poet, playwright – a scandalous Jill-of-all-Trades and mistress of none. In her unapologetic pursuit of fame, Madge ditches her dysfunctional family to join the court of an unruly Queen and leave her mark on history.

Mad Madge

Living Hyphen is a community made up of people from diasporas from all around the world, as well as Indigenous people from many nations. We sit with the entangled fact that all of our histories and our present-day realities are similarly bound up in colonization, imperialism, military occupations, and racist immigration policies in our homelands and right here on Turtle Island. Today we continue to see the violence and harm stemming from these systems of oppression. We have been watching that violence on full blast on our screens for the last five months to Palestinians in Gaza. While our mainstream media does not cover these stories in full, we know that this violence has also been unfolding and continues to unfold in Sudan, to Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, in Ukraine, to Uyghurs in China, and so many more places and people around the world.

Solidarity in Storytelling: Open Mic Night

On March 21, 2024 — for one night only — we are opening up our entire building and activating it with music, games, M.A.C. glam station, photo spots, pop-up performances, and more.

10 for 10 Launch Party

The City of Toronto is developing a new Action Plan for Toronto’s Culture Sector, and we’d like to help facilitate the opinions of our West Queen West community members being heard!

Community Meeting: Action Plan for Toronto’s Culture Sector

Walking Home is an interdisciplinary solo theatre development workshop created and performed by award-winning international theatre artist/filmmaker Warren Sulatycky. The work explores his journey care-giving for his mother as she progresses through stages of Alzheimers/dementia. Deeply personal yet universal in scope, the work looks not only at Sulatycky’s own care-giving challenges but the hurdles faced by societies when it comes to looking after the health of its’ elderly and indeed of all age populations. Incorporating performance, video, sound/music design, three workshop performances of the work-in-progress February 15 – 18, 2024.

Walking Home

Two strangers meet on a lonely beach, not knowing that their futures depend on this encounter.

On the Other Side of the Sea

Shakespeare BASH’d presents a mythic story of two honourable cousins, challenging expected ideas of gender, sexuality, romance, and ceremony: The Two Noble Kinsmen, one of Shakespeare’s last plays, a collaboration with protégé John Fletcher.

The Two Noble Kinsmen

dance Immersion presents Kenya’s Fernando Anuang’a in his internationally-renowned contemporary Maasaï dance solo, TRADITIONAL FUTURE – in North America for the first time, January 19 & 20, 2024 at The Theatre Centre! With this work Fernando explores: How do we evolve tradition toward modernity without obliterating its tracks, without betraying one’s roots?

Traditional Future

Join us at The Theatre Centre Cafe/Bar as we raise a glass with Rum Shop T.O.!

Rum Shop T.O.

The first edition of a brand new showcase for LIVE performance: WHAT’S GOIN-ON1 hits The Theatre Centre’s Franco Boni Theatre on Wed Dec 13, Doors at 7pm.

What's Goin-on1

Kick-off your holiday season with Shakespeare BASH’d and a night of kick-ass karaoke.

Karaoke BASH'd

This fall at The Theatre Centre, Necessary Angel Theatre Company will produce the Canadian Premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s new play, Letters From Max, a ritual an adaptation of her award-winning 2018 book. This stunning New York Times Critic’s Pick brings to life the profound connection and friendship between playwright and MacArthur Fellow Sarah Ruhl, and her student, poet Max Ritvo.

Letters From Max, a ritual

In a world marred by turmoil and desperation, ‘HAGAR‘ unfolds the gripping odyssey of a determined mother striving to find safety with her infant son. Amidst the chaos of a war-torn Syria, the play delves into the shadows of our troubled reality, exposing the vulnerability and resiliency of refugee women in a ruthless world.

Hagar

The Theatre Centre is proud to present A Night with Stewart Legere! Join us (and his entire family in the audience) at The Theatre Centre Cafe/Bar for an intimate evening of songs and stories. The east-coast songwriter Stewart Legere will play a collection of new songs, selections from his 2017 debut QUIET THE STATION, and more (with appearances from special guests!)

A Night with Stewart Legere

très loin is a visual and kinesthetic installation created in collaborative partnership with choreographer Sylvie Bouchard, visual artist Ed Pien, composer Phil Strong with music consultant Laurel MacDonald, dramaturg Anne-Marie Donovan, lighting designer André du Toit, costume designer Cheryl Lalonde and four performers: Sierra Chin Sawdy, Sully Malaeb Proulx, Raelyn Metcalfe and Pulga Muchochoma.

très loin

work.txt by Nathan Ellis (UK) designs a welcoming space for collectively processing “working” in capitalist metropolitan cities. There are building blocks, reflections, observations and tasks — the only thing missing here is the labour, and this is where the audiences are invited to step in.

work.txt

Hillar’s relationship with Art began at a young age. Starting piano at age six, he was regularly winning recital competitions by his teens. By his early twenties his interests moved to theatre which led to the eventual creation of DNA.

Celebration of Life & The Exhibit: Hillar Liitoja

SummerWorks expands the possibilities of performance with their 33rd annual Festival, featuring diverse encounters and curious collaborations with artists and creative collaborators from across Canada, and around the world. This year’s Festival programming offers a snapshot of the future of contemporary performance, with full presentations of new work alongside works in crucial stages of development, offering audiences a dynamic choice in how they engage with the Festival.

SummerWorks Performance Festival

Loss is a deeply honest, live retelling of an intergenerational family story, written by Ian Kamau and his father Roger McTair.

Loss

Harbourfront Centre

This interactive installation, curated by Oddside Arts collective members, offers a space for reflection, dialogue, and anonymous empathy with others while examining the often unspoken experiences in Afro-Caribbean familial culture. The experience aims to facilitate healing, growth, and community building through public art — inspired by themes explored in Ian Kamau’s Loss (part of Luminato 2023, developed at The Theatre Centre’s Residency Program).

Loss: In Isolation

Sara Porter Productions presents – L-E-A-K – an absurdist and poetic lesbian love letter to the ocean, inspired by the ecosexual notions of falling in love with the earth. The work draws on images, poetry, and surreal stories created from the shores of Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy – home to the highest tides in the world.

L-e-a-k

Enemy Lines is a live dance performance that looks at how a climate of fear led to the incarceration of Japanese Canadians. Held by curiosity, choreographer Mayumi Lashbrook looks back at the actions taken against her family during World War II.

Enemy Lines

What if you could hold the soul of your loved one in your hands? Or see inside their memories? Or talk to them after death? TomorrowLove is a cycle of short plays about love, sex, and the future. Questioning how innovation impacts relationships, these stories explore how technology can create new dimensions of human connection – and perhaps reveal what we should have known all along.

TomorrowLove

An electrifying and unfaithful take on Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy, this 200 bpm adaptation blends techno, despair, and family politics. One goat and a pack of jackals navigate global displacement while we witness the failure of democracy and subsequent hope for revolution. A thought-provoking and fierce exploration of justice, power, and the human spirit.

antigone lives*

Forget what you think you know about gods. Set in an America post-capitalist collapse, this contemporary retelling of Persephone‘s story examines the heartbreaking challenges of growing up in a broken home, a rupture defined by life and death. A teenage coming of age story with epic themes; love, choice, consequence. Love again.

Seph

Conceived and directed by CORPUS’ artistic director David Danzon, Mukashi, Mukashi explores two iconic characters of Western and Japanese folklore: The Wolf and the Crane. Both carry deep roots in the collective consciousness of each culture. Their unlikely meeting sets the stage for a conflictual then harmonious relationship that blossoms through a transformative journey. The work uses traditional and contemporary Japanese art forms (Origami, Kyōgen, Bunraku, Manga), mixed with old and newer Western practices such as pantomime and the comedy traditions of Looney Tunes and TV talk shows.

The Theatre Centre

24 - 28 Sep, 2024

Mukashi, Mukashi

7 - 9 Aug, 2024

The Movements

Jul 27, 2024

The Big Band Theory featuring Northern Soul Horns

The Theatre Centre