Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre is to close

[On_Headset]

The Toronto Star reported last week that the Princess of Wales, a 2000-seat venue, will be demolished.

The theatre, which was built to host Miss Saigon, specialized in long-running shows, most notably a 4-year run of The Lion King. It also hosted the ill-fated 2006 Lord of the Rings musical.

The catch: it opened in 1993. One of the city's largest and most prestigious venues, closing down less than two decades after construction.

The venue was explicitly built to host large-scale commercial theatre, but these shows are less and less viable. The most recent production to close, Billy Elliot, only ran for 37 weeks.

Meanwhile, a few blocks east, the Mirvish organization (which owns the Princess) has announced a "second season" of small-scale and indie theatre at one of their smaller venues, including a production which is being transferred directly from one of the city's fringe festivals.

tl;dr: Toronto's only commercial producer is divesting itself from large-scale musicals and instead throwing resources at smaller, more intimate shows in smaller, more intimate venues. Things are changing!

[babens]

The winds of change are definitely blowing.  I remember in the early 90s in Cleveland we were constantly getting television ads for the Toronto production of The Phantom of the Opera.  I can still hear the tag-line in my head, "Buy Phantom by phone" said in an appropriately deep, Phantom-esque voice.  Of course that was the Pantages.  If I recall from the ads correctly (recognizing that it was now some 15 years ago, so the memories are hazy) Beauty and the Beast also had a fairly successful open run at the Princess of Wales in the 90s.

[On_Headset]

That's the idea, yes.

Phantom ran for a decade, mostly on busses full of American tourists. Other shows (Crazy For You, Forever Plaid, etc.) had lengthy runs on a similar model. The model was in slow decline in the late 1990s (Phantom had closed, can you imagine?), but then September 11th happened and it suddenly got much more difficult for people to cross borders.

And then SARS hit in 2003, which basically cut off all tourism to Toronto for about a year. Lion King closed as a direct result, and since then, not a single production anywhere in the city has lasted longer than two years.

On the plus side, the Mirvish has had a string of major successes at the Panasonic, which they've developed as an industrial-looking, youth-oriented venue. Almost everything which pulls through the Panasonic seems to get held over. (And did I mention the youthful crowds who pack the place? Makes me just a little hopeful!)

[LCSM]

I remember going to see the "ill-fated 2006 Lord of the Rings musical." It was the first show of its size that I'd seen - and I distinctly remember that I learned about program inserts for replacement actors that night. Somehow, I'd managed to never come across them until then. Mind you, this was about the time I decided to go into theatre professionally, so about the time I started paying an extra amount of attention.

Pleased to see that Ghery is involved in the construction plans - should become an interesting space.

[Kelasaurus]

I was sort of shocked when I read this.  I saw the Sound of Music there in 2009, and it was a beautiful theatre.  It's sad that such a new space is being knocked down.

I've been inside all of the Mirvish houses (except the Panasonic), and I suppose the historical significance of the Royal Alex and the Ed Mirvish (it was the Canon when I went there) holds up (I'm fairly certain the Royal Alex is a historical landmark). 

I don't know, I guess I am sad any time a theatre is (more or less) needlessly closed down and replaced with condos, especially in the "big musical" capital of my home and native land

[LizzG]

Wow - that's really surprising.  We played there last summer.  It's a pretty nice space.  Granted, I haven't seen any of the other Toronto theaters, but surprising that one so new and nice would be torn down...

[babens]

In one of the articles I read about this David Mirvish made a joke along the lines of "If I find I need a theater like the Princess of Wales again I'll just build a new one."  Crazily enough, from what I've heard from people who've worked with the Mirvish organization while he may have been chuckling while stating this, he probably actually meant it, and could easily afford to do so.