| re: I don't understand some theatres | |
| Posted by: portenopete 09:30 am EDT 06/26/24 | |
| In reply to: re: I don't understand some theatres - singleticket 02:49 pm EDT 06/25/24 | |
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| Canada's version were a series of centennial-era theatres in the 2000-seat range. Most of them were creatively called Centennial Auditorium. This was in the mid-1960's (to mark Canada's 100th birthday in 1967). They are sleek and modern and spacious and comfortable but, inevitably, a little cold. Montreal's Place des Arts took over for Her Majesty's Theatre which was an old-school touring house right in the centre of downtown. PdA is a three-theatre complex on a campus on the east side of the downtown straddling the English-French divide of Boulevard St-Laurent. The main space is the Salle Wilfred Pelletier and was home for both the Montreal Symphony (in its glory days under Charles Dutoit) and the Opéra de Montréal. Unfortunately its opening co-incided with the rise of the separatist Parti Quebecois party and the exodus of a lot of anglophone Montrealers, so the touring business began to dry up. (This was probably something that was already happening in the late 1960's and '70's in all cities, as White Flight changed the demographics of most major cities in the States.) The odd tour came through PdA (and God knows I begged my mom to take me) but Montréal was never a major stop on most new shows' schedules and still isn't. It takes years for shows like HAMILTON and HADESTOWN to hit Montréal. Toronto was luckier in that the major touring houses were left standing and eventually refurbished. Today they have the Royal Alex(andra), the Ed Mirvish (formerly known as the Pantages) and the Elgin-Winter Garden (the last remaining twinned theatre, with the WG sitting on top of the Elgin). They have their architectural plusses and minuses- the Ed Mirvish has had more facelifts than Joan Rivers ever did- but they provide a psychological battery in the downtown core that you can safely call a :theatre district". (in addition to the 1990's addition the Princess of Wales, the St. Lawrence Centre and what was originally called the O'Keefe Centre, which opened with the first try-out of CAMELOT in 1960.) |
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