Mirvish theatres and the Four Seasons Centre: curtain-time car service

The theatre district, in one paragraph

Toronto has the third-largest English-language theatre scene in the world after London and New York, and its houses are spread across three districts — King West's Mirvish theatres and the halls around them, Yonge Street's restored movie palaces, and University Avenue's opera house — with the King Street streetcar corridor's no-stopping rule making the district's oldest theatres the hardest to be collected from. A chauffeur who works the theatres knows each house's curtain and its running time, its side street and its curtain-down crush, the pre-theatre dinner's timing two blocks away, the matinee's family crowd and the evening's subscription audience, and the touring show's sold-out weeks when every side street is full at 10:30. This guide covers each theatre's door and corner, the King Street rule, the curtain and the curtain-down, the pre-theatre dinner, the matinees, the opera and the ballet, the concert halls, the Distillery's and Front Street's houses, the touring shows and the subscription season, the accessible entrances, and a worked theatre night.

The Mirvish theatres on King West

The Royal Alexandra (260 King West, 1907 — the Mirvish flagship, 1,500 seats): the doors on King, a streetcar corridor where no car may stop; the drop and the pickup on Duncan Street (the theatre's east side, a curb south of King) or Simcoe (the west, shared with Roy Thomson Hall's lay-by). The Princess of Wales (300 King West, 1993 — 2,000 seats, the big touring musicals): the doors on King; the drop and the pickup on John Street (the east side, the Hyatt's lay-by — the Entertainment District guide's corner) or Widmer (the west). Both theatres' curtains are 8 p.m. (7:30 for some shows), the matinees at 1:30 or 2, and the curtain-down at 10:30 to 11 with an intermission-crowd that fills Duncan and John with taxis; the chauffeur waits from 10:20 and the passenger walks the half block. The TIFF guide covers the September week when both theatres are the festival's.

The Yonge Street houses

The Ed Mirvish Theatre (244 Victoria Street, the 1920 Pantages — 2,300 seats, the long-running musicals): the doors on Victoria (the box office on Yonge), the drop and the pickup on Victoria's curb south of Dundas (one-way southbound) or Shuter; the Elgin and Winter Garden (189 Yonge, the 1913 double-decker — the Elgin's 1,500 and the Winter Garden's 1,000): the doors on Yonge (no stopping between Dundas and Queen), the drop and the pickup on Victoria behind; the CAA Theatre (651 Yonge, at Isabella — the former Panasonic, 700 seats): Yonge's curb north of Bloor's no-stopping zone, or Gloucester and Isabella; Massey Hall (178 Victoria — the concert article's Victoria curb). The Financial District hotels guide's Yonge rules apply south of Queen and the Eaton Centre's Trinity Way lay-by is the calm corner two blocks west of the Elgin.

The Four Seasons Centre: the opera and the ballet

The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts (145 Queen West, at University — the Canadian Opera Company's and the National Ballet's house, 2,000 seats, the glass City Room facing University) has its main doors on Queen at University's south-west corner, with the University Avenue lay-by on the boulevard's west side south of Queen (the drop and the pickup — University is wide, the lay-by holds four cars, and a car approaches southbound from Queen's Park or northbound from Front) and the Queen Street door (the curb west of University, a streetcar street in mixed traffic — off-peak, away from the stops); the opera's curtains are 7:30, the ballet's 7:30 and the matinees' 2, the running times long (an opera's three and a half hours with two intermissions), and the curtain-down's University lay-by fills with the Osgoode Hall side's taxis — the chauffeur waits on Richmond west of University and moves on the text. The Christmas Market and holiday events article covers the Nutcracker's December run and the ROM and AGO article the cultural day the opera house ends.

The concert halls

Roy Thomson Hall (60 Simcoe — the Toronto Symphony, the touring orchestras, the concerts): the Simcoe lay-by south of King, shared with the Ritz-Carlton and the Royal Alex's west side (the Ritz, Shangri-La and St. Regis article covers the shared curb on a concert night), the pickup on Simcoe north of King or Wellington; Koerner Hall (273 Bloor West, the Royal Conservatory — 1,100 seats, the chamber music and the world music): the Bloor curb west of Avenue Road (outside the Mink Mile's zone) or Philosopher's Walk's Bloor entrance, the University of Toronto article's campus edge; the St. Lawrence Centre's halls (below). The concert article covers the popular-music venues.

The Distillery's and Front Street's houses

The Young Centre for the Performing Arts (Soulpepper Theatre's home, in the Distillery — the Distillery District guide's Mill Street gate and the Cherry gate for the shortest walk); Meridian Hall (1 Front East, the former Sony Centre — 3,200 seats, the touring shows and the dance) and the Bluma Appel Theatre (27 Front East, in the St. Lawrence Centre — Canadian Stage's main house, 850 seats): Front Street's curb east of Yonge (off-peak — Front is a bus corridor at the peaks) or Scott Street behind the Meridian; Canadian Stage's Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley, at Front — the intimate house): Berkeley's curb. The Union Station pickup guide covers the station two blocks west and the game-night crush that a Front Street theatre shares.

The King Street rule

King Street from Bathurst to Jarvis is the streetcar priority corridor — through traffic restricted, stopping prohibited, cameras and tow trucks enforcing — and no theatre on King (the Royal Alex, the Princess of Wales, TIFF Bell Lightbox) has a King Street pickup; a passenger who says "meet me at the Royal Alex" is met on Duncan, and the confirmation says so. The Entertainment District guide covers the corridor's rules in full and the side streets' characters.

The curtain and the curtain-down

A theatre's curtain sets the drop (fifteen minutes before — the will-call line, the coat check, the seat) and its running time sets the pickup (the curtain plus the running time plus ten — a 8 p.m. musical of two hours forty is a 10:50 pickup); the chauffeur, told the show, knows the running time (the Mirvish site lists it) and waits on the side street from ten minutes before the curtain-down, moving on the text ("curtain call"). The curtain-down crush — a thousand or two thousand people onto Duncan and John, or the University lay-by, in ten minutes — is the Scotiabank Arena guide's named-corner logic at a theatre's scale: agreed before, the passenger walking the half block, the car where it said. A passenger who leaves at the last bow beats the coat-check line; one who waits for the ovation's end walks through it.

The pre-theatre dinner

An 8 p.m. curtain's dinner is 5:30 to 7:15 — the fine dining article's rooms two blocks from the King West theatres (the Entertainment District guide's Spadina-to-Portland row, Canoe, the Ritz's TOCA), the Financial District's rooms for the Four Seasons Centre and the Front Street houses, Yorkville's for Koerner Hall — and the hourly holds the evening (dinner, the theatre, a nightcap at the Library Bar or the Ritz's DEQ) against three transfers, with the hourly vs point-to-point article's arithmetic and the date night article's evening; a couple who books the dinner books the car for 5:15.

The matinees

The Wednesday and the weekend matinees (1:30 or 2, curtain-down at 4:30) are the families' and the seniors' — the child seats article's SUV for a family's first musical, the accessible service article's vehicle for a theatre-goer who needs the theatre's accessible entrance (each house has one: the Royal Alex's on King by arrangement with the house, the Princess of Wales's on John, the Four Seasons Centre's on University's lay-by, the Ed Mirvish's on Victoria) — and the afternoon's King Street is the same corridor with lighter side streets; a matinee's pickup is Duncan or John at 4:30 with the school groups' buses on Simcoe.

The touring shows and the subscription season

A touring musical's sold-out run (the Princess of Wales's and the Ed Mirvish's eight-week engagements) fills every side street at 10:30 for two months, and a chauffeur names a corner a block further (Wellington and John, Richmond and Victoria) for the run's Saturdays; the Mirvish subscription season (six or seven shows from September to June, the same seats, the same night of the week) is a standing order — the same pickup, the same side street, the same chauffeur — and a company's subscription for its clients is the corporate account billing article's client-entertainment code with the visiting clients itinerary article's evening. The Canadian Opera Company's and the National Ballet's subscriptions run the same way at the Four Seasons Centre.

A worked theatre night

A couple from Rosedale, a Saturday, the Princess of Wales's 8 p.m. musical (two hours fifty with intermission). 5:15 p.m.: the Rosedale home to a King West restaurant's Portland Street corner — the DVP, the Richmond exit, west; dropped at 5:40. 7:15: collected on Portland; John Street's lay-by at 7:25 (the Hyatt's side); the theatre's John Street doors. 7:25–10:55: the chauffeur on Wellington at John. 10:52: the text — "curtain call." 10:58: the couple at John's curb north of King; the car. 11:05: the Library Bar — the Royal York's porte-cochère, quiet at that hour. 12:15 a.m.: Rosedale via Yonge. Seven hours on the hourly, one corridor never stopped on, and a subscription's next Saturday booked.

Theatre district quick reference

Booking a theatre night

The engine takes the theatre's name with the show and the curtain in the notes; the hourly chauffeur page books the dinner-and-theatre evening; the standing orders article sets up the subscription season. The chauffeur knows the running time.

Book a theatre night