The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres are a pair of stacked

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

s in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, Ontario, Canada. The Winter Garden Theatre is seven storeys above the Elgin Theatre. They are the last surviving

Edwardian The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...

stacked theatres in the world.

History

The pair of theatres were originally built as the flagship of Marcus Loew's theatre chain in 1913. The building was designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb, who also designed the Ed Mirvish Theatre nearby. Both theatres were built to show

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

acts and the short silent movies of the time. Each theatre was intended for a different class of patron. The gold-and-marble, domed, 'hard-top' lower theatre (originally called Loew's Yonge Street Theatre) was home to continuous

and movies. The upper-level Winter Garden is an 'atmospheric' country garden under the stars, painted with murals of plants and garden trellises, with tree trunk columns and lantern lights. The upper theatre was built for the 'Big Time' vaudeville market and had reserved seats at premium prices, catering to affluent patrons. As well as competing in a different market, the upper theatre could be used for experimentation with acts, without the risk of closing the lower theatre. By 1928, feature-length silent films were popular, but sound films were just coming into their own. In 1928, the lower theatre was converted to show sound films and the upper theatre was closed. The Winter Garden remained shuttered for about sixty years. Left inside it was a large collection of vaudeville

flats Flat or flats may refer to: Architecture * Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries Arts and entertainment * Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch * Flat (soldier), ...

and scenery, now the world's largest surviving collection. In 1969, Loews sold the Elgin to

Famous Players Famous Players Limited Partnership, DBA Famous Players, is a Canadian-based subsidiary of Cineplex Entertainment. As an independent company, it existed as a film exhibitor and cable television service provider. Famous Players operated numerous m ...

. By the 1970s, the Elgin was showing mainly B movies and soft-core pornography.

Recent history

Since 1979, the Elgin Theatre has served as one of the hosts to the annual

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

In 1981, the

Ontario Heritage Foundation The Ontario Heritage Trust (french: link=no, Fiducie du patrimoine ontarien) is a non-profit agency of the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture. It is responsible for protecting, preserving and promoting the built, natural and cultural herita ...

bought the structure from Famous Players. From March 1985 through March 1987 the musical ''

Cats The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members o ...

'' was very successfully presented in the essentially unrestored Elgin, showing the viability of the theatre. The building closed in 1987 for a full restoration and reopened in 1989. In 1991, Dr. David Griesinger and Steve Barbar of Lexicon, Inc., at the request of acousticians Neil Muncy and Robert Tanner, installed the first production LARES system, an electroacoustic enhancement system that augments architectural acoustics, in the Elgin Theatre. This initial LARES system used two microphones placed at the balcony's front edge to pick up sound from the stage. The microphone signals were digitized and processed in two mainframe computers, and the resulting signals were sent to 56 loudspeakers in the main ceiling and 60 under the balcony, for the purpose of providing additional intelligibility and ambience. The Elgin Theatre housed the world premiere of the ''

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

'' musical in 1994, which later transferred to London's West End in 2000. In 1995, it was home to '' The Who's Tommy'' musical. Since 1996,

Ross Petty Ross Petty (born August 29, 1946) is a Canadian actor and theatre producer. He is best known for his eponymous production company, which staged what were promoted as "family musical" theatre productions in the British pantomime tradition in Toront ...

Productions has staged

pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speakin ...

s at the Elgin Theatre each Christmas season. From February 10 to 14, 2004,

Conan O'Brien Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known for having hosted late-night talk shows for almost 28 years, beginning with '' Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' ( ...

taped four episodes of NBC's '' Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' from the Elgin Theatre. The visit came about via Toronto City Council's

CDN$ The Canadian dollar (symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style ...

1 million (~ US$750,000 at the time) payment to NBC to have the U.S. national television program visit Toronto for a week of shows, part of the overall council-funded PR effort of promoting Toronto as a tourist destination for

Americans Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many dual citizens, expatriates, and permanent residents could also legally claim Ame ...

in the wake of the widely publicized summer 2003 Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious ...

that adversely impacted the city's tourism industry. The Elgin Theatre played host to the taping of '' Bryan Adams in Concert'' for the American broadcast of '' Great Performances'' on PBS. The show was filmed in July 2014 and first aired on March 1, 2015.

In popular culture

A pivotal scene in the 1973 made-for-TV film ''

She Cried Murder ''She Cried Murder'' is a 1973 American TV film starring Telly Savalas and Linda Day George. Plot A model witnesses a murder, and the cop investigating is the one who did it. And he knows she knows, and she knows he knows she knows. Cast *Telly ...

'' takes place in the (then shuttered) Winter Garden. The cover photos for Rush's 1981 live album '' Exit...Stage Left'' were shot at the Winter Garden and the

Buffalo Memorial Auditorium Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, colloquially known as The Aud, was a multipurpose indoor arena in downtown Buffalo, New York. Opened on October 14, 1940, it was home to the Canisius Golden Griffins ( NCAA), the Buffalo Bisons ( AHL), the Buffalo B ...

. The Winter Garden is seen in the 1994 film Camilla. The location is also featured in the 2017 movie '' The Shape of Water'' and receives an acknowledgement in the closing credits. The music video for "Changes" by the Montreal band Stars is also set there.

Emily St. John Mandel Emily St. John Mandel (; born 1979) is a Canadian novelist and essayist. She has written six novels, including '' Station Eleven'' (2014) and '' The Glass Hotel'' (2020). ''Station Eleven'', which has been translated into 33 languages, has been ...

's 2014 novel ''

Station Eleven ''Station Eleven'' is a novel by the Canadian writer Emily St. John Mandel. It takes place in the Great Lakes region before and after a fictional swine flu pandemic, known as the "Georgia Flu", has devastated the world, killing most of the popul ...

'' begins on the stage of the Elgin Theatre.

Other Thomas Lamb theatres in Canada

* Ed Mirvish Theatre, Toronto * Uptown Theatre, Toronto * Capitol Cinema, Ottawa * The Sanderson Centre for the Performing Arts, Brantford

References

External links