Ed Mirvish's Theatres

Ed Mirvish, having built his fortune with Honest Ed's, bought the historic Royal Alexandra Theatre in 1963 when it faced possible demolition, restoring the 1907 playhouse and turning it into a working commercial theatre at a time when downtown Toronto had little in the way of a professional touring theatre scene. The purchase marked Mirvish's unlikely second career as a theatre impresario, running alongside his discount retail business rather than replacing it.

A family theatre empire

Mirvish and his son David went on to build the Princess of Wales Theatre, which opened in 1993 specifically to house the Toronto run of the musical Miss Saigon, and the family's company, Mirvish Productions, eventually came to operate several of Toronto's largest commercial theatres, staging long-running touring productions of major musicals. That cluster of venues around King Street West is still often referred to as Toronto's theatre district, and Mirvish Productions remains one of the largest commercial theatre operators in Canada.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Mirvish Productions
• Wikipedia — Ed Mirvish

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