By Ron Nurwisah, Boy Reporter

The ghosts of vaudeville and silent cinema still haunt us today. While these two art forms are largely forgotten now, their decline has parallels with the slow decline of cinema going on today.
This is one of the arguments Toronto-based artist Annie MacDonnell explores in her show at the new Toronto Photographer’s Workshop (Queen and Ossington). In this show she explores how vaudeville’s physicality shaped early cinema and how the representational qualities of cinema would go on to shape its development and now its decline.
Torontoist’s own Robonto contributes models of turn-of-the century vaudeville houses. Buildings that were eventually converted into movie houses and have been torn down in the name of progress, city building or as the public no longer finds itself drawn to the cinema in the same way.
Annie MacDonnell’s the Castle and Other Works has its opening tonight 7:00-9:00pm and runs until Nov. 25th at TPW (56 Ossington Ave.)