Arts & Culture in Richmond Hill

Praised by the Toronto Star as “one of the world’s top period-performance orchestras,” the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra dazzles music fans with an aural kaleidoscope of euphony. Based out of Toronto's imposingly grand Trinity-St. Paul's United Church, the group comprises a choir of angel-voiced singers and a virtuosic chamber orchestra that are dedicated to authentic period performance. An intense commitment to accuracy leads the musicians to adopt centuries-old performance techniques, such as playing only instruments styled after 18th century versions.

At Magic Lantern Theatres, darkened auditoriums with flickering screens draw audiences into magical worlds where fish can talk, motorcycles leap canyons, and love comes even for those who eat crackers in bed. The partnering multiplex theatres and cinemas show recently released blockbuster flicks at 15 locations spread across Canada, each of which retains its own unique personality and honours any historic roots. In Edmonton, the Princess Theatre’s original 1915 auditorium, complete with balcony, golden drapes, and red walls, accommodates moviegoers with babies or pet hyenas inside a soundproof cry room. In Saskatchewan, the circa-1930 Roxy Theatre preserves the ambience of a Spanish courtyard. As guests find their auditoriums at the Ontario locations, they can admire giant murals by local artist Fred Harrison.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore premiered on Broadway to rave reviews in 2009, and the show recently made its successful Canadian premiere in Toronto. Based on a book by Ilene Beckerman, Love, Loss, and What I Wore was adapted for the stage by sisters Nora and Delia Ephron—Nora is the co-writer and director behind films such as Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and Julie & Julia, and Delia is a co-writer for You've Got Mail and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The play collects vignettes and monologues on clothing, accessories, and both the funny and the painful memories that women associate with them, creating a hilarious theatrical experience that's universal in its appeal, like Hawaiian pizza or the songs of Burt Bacharach.

The largest soft-seat theatre in Canada, the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts is perhaps most famous for its overhanging marquee outside. The diagonal canopy and its snake-like rows of lights were restored to their original form in 2010, along with the facility’s wood, brass, and marble accents. Inside the lobby, York Wilson’s mural, The Seven Lively Arts, fills eyes with fractured, panoramic representations of various artistic media, from slanted musical staffs to menacing Greek theatre masks.

When Brittany Goldfield Rodrigues of Broadway World paid a visit to Lower Ossington Theatre's production of RENT, she was struck by many things—the dynamite performances and powerhouse vocals, the costumes, the deceptively simple staging—but the space itself might have taken the cake. An intimate venue can make an experience immersive, and Lower Ossington Theatre's three performance spaces possess that quality in spades. Goldfield Rodrigues noted how instead of a stage, the theatre kept audiences and performers on the same plane—the show in an open space at the front with individual chairs facing it—helping viewers feel as though they were in the same world as the characters and dispelling the worry that the performers might be invading giants.

Cofounder and artistic director of Les Coquettes Cabaret, Catherine Skinner—known onstage as La Minouche—takes the art of public seduction seriously. In a video posted to the troupe's YouTube channel, she notes, “You'll see a little bit of dancing, a little bit of singing, a little bit of aerial circusry, and a little bit of very tasteful striptease.” Setting comedy and titillation aflutter in a blizzard of double entendres, the troupe puts on shows that appeal to adult audiences of any age or gender. The aesthetic might evoke a Burtonesque gothic setting, the seven sexy seas of the pirate age, a neon-flooded nightclub of the '80s, or the future's inevitable dress code of sentient hairpieces. The company thoroughly impressed Kelli Korducki of The Torontoist, who praised the performers' "undeniable song and dance chops," adding that "cabaret patrons may come for the scantily clad dancers, but they will certainly stay for the talent.”