Two rival companies merged into one, and it still stages Shakespeare in a public park

Canadian Stage

Formed from the 1988 merger of Toronto Free Theatre and CentreStage, Canadian Stage is best known for its Dream in High Park summer Shakespeare series.

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Toronto skyline, 2012 β€” Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

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Canadian Stage was formed in 1988 through the merger of two existing Toronto companies, Toronto Free Theatre and CentreStage, combining their resources into what became the city's largest not-for-profit theatre company. The merged company took over the Berkeley Street Theatre, a converted industrial space near the Distillery District, as one of its main performance venues, staging a mix of contemporary Canadian and international work.

Shakespeare in the park

Canadian Stage is probably best known to casual Torontonians for Dream in High Park, its long-running summer outdoor Shakespeare series staged in the natural amphitheatre of High Park, which draws audiences who bring picnics and blankets for pay-what-you-can performances each summer. The series has run for decades and, alongside the company's indoor mainstage seasons, made Canadian Stage one of the more publicly visible theatre companies in the city rather than one confined to subscriber audiences alone.

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