Where pucks once flew 15 feet or more on the ice, shoppers will stare at a 15-foot wall of cheese. Today’s grand opening of the new flagship Loblaws store at Maple Leaf Gardens is a long-awaited step in the repurposing of a Toronto landmark. Along with Ryerson University’s Peter Gilgan Athletic Centre at the Gardens, [...]

MacHomer Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst Street) September 13–25 $30–$45 (Sundays are PWYC) Shakespeare’s classics have seen their fair share of loose interpretations, with Macbeth being a primary target. But here’s one that really puts the icing on the doughnut—the entirety of the Scottish Play played by one man, with no set or props, in 75 [...]

Kicking off a summertime staple, Canadian Stage Company's Dream in High Park production this year, The Winter's Tale, is a choice that invites as much interpretation as the stage directions "Exit, pursued by a bear" (for which the play is best known). Looking past its off-season title, the play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-known and less often–produced works, and it's a far cry from the typical audience-drawing fare like A Midsummer Night's Dream or Romeo and Juliet or even Othello. Its subject matter—simultaneously comedic and tragic and absurd—can be difficult to digest for those unfamiliar with the script.

In today’s Urban Planner: view interdisciplinary works of art from more than 500 students at OCADU’s Graduate Exhibition, find out how to maximize your green thumb, celebrate some influential books, see some new takes on Shakespeare, and support present and future rock grrls.

Urban Planner is Torontoist’s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to events@torontoist.com. These Are Powers will perform tonight at the And And And (space) for [...]

What a piece of work is Rand! Photo by Tim Fennell. Let’s not lie, maybe some of us went to see that four-hour, unabridged Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet back when we were in grade six, then wore out our VHS copies of the perhaps over-the-top film, to-be-or-not-to-be-ing along with Ken. Maybe we’ve also seen [...]

There are those of us whose parents started bringing us to the Dream in High Park when we were six, who have probably seen A Midsummer Night’s Dream a half dozen times, studied it in school on a regular basis since grade five, and can probably recite Helena’s “O, spite! O, Hell!” monologue from memory. [...]

Far be it from us to conflate professional sports with Bill Shakespeare—but the Toronto Maple Leafs’ actions before, during and after Tuesday’s NHL trade deadline recall Macbeth’s famous words: full of sound and fury, yet ultimately signifying nothing. Charges of heresy will be duly acknowledged. In the end, the promised blow-up never materialized. None of [...]

The history of Michael Hollingsworth’s “epic play-cycle” The History of the Village of the Small Huts is almost as storied (and confusing) as the events they represent. Many are familiar with the plays only since 2000, when VideoCabaret‘s residency began in the back room at the Cameron House. Since then, they have produced a new [...]

Soulpepper, that scrappy little theatre company from The Distillery, just released their 2008 schedule. If you haven't seen a Soulpepper play before, you've been missing out on some of the best theatre this city has to offer. This past season was one of Soulpepper’s greatest. Among other fantastic shows, the company put on an astounding rendition of Brecht's The Threepenny Opera and a hilarious staging of William Saroyan’s Time of Your Life. They also...

Why Not Theatre‘s production of Hamlet, currently playing at the Winchester Street Theatre, bills itself as an interpretation of everyone’s favourite tragedy so new and different that it has taken an alternate title: The Prince Hamlet. But rather than some from-Mars production full of black leather and dance-breaks you might expect to find at the [...]