Gossip no longer, culture vultures. We've finally got confirmation on CanStage's upcoming season. Like it or not, it looks like the rumours are true. As we reported before, the Bluma Appel Theatre's rather commercial lineup is entirely free of any Canadian-written shows, which has some folks in quite a tizzy. And as we suspected, CanStage is getting its CanCon through co-pros at the Berkeley Street Theatre. They're calling it The Berkeley Street Project, and......

Here's something to clear away your post-NYE doldrums: the Fringe, everyone's favourite early-summer theatre festival (don't worry, SummerWorks, you're our favourite late-summer theatre festival) has had a baby. Aw! Last Wednesday, something called The Next Stage Theatre Festival began at Factory Theatre. Next Stage really is like a baby Fringe: a smaller festival of only 8 shows running in rep at a single theatre, complete with a heated beer tent. The plays, which run......

Necessary Angel has just announced a totally cool event planned to take place on March 3, 2008. Three playwrights will be given the opening lines for a new play. Each playwright will have 4 hours in which to write said play, after which three different teams will have 5 hours to rehearse the works. When those 5 hours are up, the plays have to be performed at Necessary Angel's annual gala at the Capitol......

Living Tall is basically an entirely perfect one man show, and it's only playing at the Tarragon Extra Space until Sunday, so you'd better get your act in gear. The script by Mike Geither is tight, hilarious and fascinating, Karin Randoja's direction is focused and inventive and Ker Wells' performance is astounding and completely compelling. The show, which was quite successful at this year's SummerWorks festival, is structured as a pop psychology sales seminar......

If there's anything Jesus loves more than flattery, it's porn stars. Well, technically, Jesus loves everyone—even those little teenage tramps and their HPV vaccines—but now, ol' JHC is adding some marketing pizzazz to that affection. Since deities also love acting all obscure and ambiguous, the Michigan-based XXX Church (savvy!) has taken it upon themselves to declare that Jesus wants you to stop looking at porn and instead find titillation in scripture. And they've set their......

Thanks to AEG Live, the same great people who gave us Justin Timberlake tickets to give away in April, we have yet another American cultural phenomenon looking to invade Canada: So You Think You Can Dance. So You Think You Can Dance comes to the Air Canada Centre on Thursday, November 1, 2007, at 8:00 p.m., and will feature the top 10 finalists from this season (which means, unfortunately, that it will not include the......

Jesus in Montana is a one-man show by Barry Smith detailing his actual experience as a young man of hitchhiking to Missoula, Montana where he moved in with an octogenarian claiming to be the Second Coming who also happened to be a convicted child molester. If that doesn't sound very funny, you'll just have to take Torontoist's word for it that the results are actually often hilarious. With the aid of an irreverent Power......

The good people at Brunswick Theatre are hosting another week of free film screenings! Return their love and boost attendance by coming out to see one (or a few) of the following films: Monday, July 9 Darwin's Nightmare—7 p.m. Big Bucks, Big Pharma: Pushing Drugs & Marketing Disease—9:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 10 Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price—4:30 p.m. Mardi Gras: Made in China—7 p.m. Scientology and Me—9 p.m. Wednesday, July 11 9/11......

Weekly indie institution Wavelength started in 1999, setting up shop at Ted's Wrecking Yard, then bouncing between venues until landing at its current home, Sneaky Dee's, in 2002. Past performers read like a who's-who of home grown indie music: Great Lake Swimmers, The Bicycles, Cadence Weapon, Julie Doiron, Peaches, Final Fantasy, Feist—and the list goes on. After a Canada Day hiatus, the Sunday night series is back with a stellar July lineup for its live......

Last night at the beautiful Winter Garden Theatre, the winners of the 28th Annual Dora Awards were announced in a ceremony hosted by the hilarious Rick Miller (of MacHomer and Bigger Than Jesus fame). The Doras are basically Canada's version of the Tonies, except you can't watch them on TV and see Molly Ringwald and John Stamos jazz-hand their way through a radical new interpretation of Hello, Dolly! As one might expect, the whole......

Developers RioCan bought the parking lot at the corner of Queen Street West and Portland back in 2005. Immediately, rumours started to circulate that a big box store, like Home Depot, was going to be built at the site. At the time, The Globe and Mail reported that RioCan planned to start building in 2007. Which is now. So what's happening with the project? In August 2006, Spacing Wire reported that activists had met......

Unfortunately, Brunswick Theatre cancelled its weeklong screening of Barbara Hammer films and accompanying art exhibit due to lack of attendance. (Only one person attended last Saturday evening. How disappointing.) So in its place, the cinema will show free films for the rest of the week! No Logo—June 10, 7 p.m. The God Delusion—June 10, 8:30 p.m. & June 12, 7 p.m. War on Science—June 11, 7 p.m. Darwin's Nightmare—June 11, 8:30 p.m. Sharia in......

Remember Makeout!? You can see what happened with the roomful of 200 people smooching at the Ryerson University Film Festival. This weekend RUFF will showcase films by about 40 graduating Image Arts students from May 10-12 at Royal Cinema. Eat popcorn to Billy Bites People, in which, well, Billy bites people, claymation in Happy Endings Sanatorium, and Jesus’ second coming in Zombie Jesus!. A man steals sounds from existence and catalogues them in Even With......

If you aren't all Hot Docced out yet, there's still plenty of fantastic non-fiction flicks to see (including City Idol, of course). Comrades in Dreams, a film about independent cinema owners around the world has been building up great word of mouth (today at 4:30 p.m. at Innis Town Hall). Tonight, drink in the first screening of Milk in the Land (Innis at 9:45 p.m.), a doc about how the world got hooked on......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

The Lunch Express rides again. It's a shuttlebus service that takes office workers in Markham and Richmond Hill to nearby shops and restaurants so they don't have to drive their own cars. Assuming you count Quizno's as a "restaurant." Admittedly, they GOT A PEPPER BAR! And a pepper bar is important. For starters, it makes the Quizno's food taste like peppers, instead of like nothing. Dalton McGuinty loves himself some garbage incinerators. The controversy over......

So last night was the Oscars: Ellen DeGeneres was surprisingly enjoyable; there were not many upsets except perhaps The Departed for Best Picture (really?); Canada only won one award, Best Animated Short for The Danish Poet; Gwyneth Paltrow resembled a giant prawn. And not in a good way. Yesterday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty went to Washington to persuade the U.S. to delay the new passport requirement for border crossings. McGuinty promised info-rich driver's licenses and......

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! We spent quite a bit of time yesterday surfing the photo stream of Toronto photographer UrticaDioica (Alexandra T). There's a fascinating range to her work, some images are artistically manipulated and collaged in Photoshop, others more straightforward pics. In......

In the post-Christmas period, there aren’t usually a lot of films released, and this year it's no different; really we’re all just twiddling our thumbs waiting for the new Cinematheque season, right? Well, there’s still some things of note this week; this Wednesday the first Doc Soup screening of the year hits, with a screening of Jesus Camp at the Bloor (506 Bloor W.) at both 6:30 & 9:15 pm. The filmmakers will be present......

From left to right (roughly): Vivian Li, Zoe Higgs, Matthew Corker, Melinda Montgomery, Adam Martin and Kerri (aka: Adam's girlfriend). While most people are uncomfortably hugging their relatives and McDonald's employees are still rolling their eyes when you ask for a free smile, six UBC students/Torontonians were out at Yonge and Dundas yesterday voluntarily hugging people. This epidemic is known as the Free Hugs Campaign and was started a couple years ago in Australia......

Amazingly, Maher Arar is still on the US government's terrorist watchlist. No, seriously. No joke. He's still on it. Metro police place three closed circuit cameras around Dundas Square for the holidays. Remember, nothing deters criminals determined to shoot at people in the busiest intersection in Toronto like cameras. Ontario Hydro's combined costs have risen 50 percent in five years; during the same time period revenues have increased only 15 percent. At the press......

It's been months in the making, but we've finally got our fancy-dancy new layout. Thanks to Neil and the rest of the Gothamist crew for hooking us up! You may have also noticed that we're also rocking a brand new shade of blue. We considered using royal blue for a while, which we liked for aesthetic reasons and symbolic ones: it's not only "the color of royalty to welcome the coming of a King,"......

When the weather is this shit the best thing to do is either hang out with friends at someone's house and tie one on, or go see a flick or two. Last night was time for the latter and the film was Rock The Bells. The film takes a funny, behind the scenes look at the trials and tribulations faced by a promoter trying to book the entire Wu Tang Clan for a live......

Following the success of Spamalot, another part of the Monty Python canon is about to be "lovingly ripped off". This time it's the British comedy troupe's 1979 film, The Life of Brian. The story, which follows the life of a man born on the same night and street as Jesus Christ, will be adapted by the same duo that worked on Spamalot: Python Eric Idle and John Du Prez. The oratorio will debut in Toronto,......

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbq's and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder? Phillyist is concerned that the war on Trans fats could affect it's beloved cheese steak sandwiches, something for which we should all be concerned.......

This weekend is the Canadian Art Foundation’s 11th Annual Canadian Art Gallery Hop Toronto. This weekend is also Artscape’s 4th Annual Queen West Art Crawl. Two big art events this weekend? Holy Jesus! What to do? The kickoff for the Gallery Hop is tonight. But before you pick up the phone to reserve a last minute ticket beware the $250 admission price to the event at the Kool Haus (patron tables for 10 are......

Paramedics dispatched to a house fire in west Toronto ended up on the Danforth because of a duplicate street name. Even worse, the fire may have resulted in the death of a 65-year old woman. This begs raises the question: why hasn't the city fixed the problem? The Star reminds us that the city has actually done a study about this problem (there are about 100 or so duplications around the megacity) and done nothing.......

A 12-year old girl who has been missing for two days has been found after an exhaustive search in the city's east end. She had run away after a fight with her parents. It seems that the Feds are stiffing Toronto about $6 million in homeless funding. The shortfall means the city can't sign service agreements with social organizations. Construction of new facilities for the homeless will also be affected. Thank you Ottawa may we......

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it......

So, we’ve been busy enough with Hot Docs to almost forget that they, you know, are releasing films which aren’t documentaries this week (madness!) Indeed, craziness of craziness, they’re even holding other festivals this week! So we’d feel terrible if we forgot to mention the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, opening tomorrow night with a showing of Jesus is Magic, Sarah Silverman’s concert film which, to our memory, did rather well as a Midnight Madness showing......