A Queen Street club where a sketch troupe called The Kids in the Hall got their start
The Rivoli
The Rivoli on Queen Street West became a key incubator for Toronto comedy and music in the 1980s, hosting the early stage shows of The Kids in the Hall before the troupe landed their own television series.
.jpg)
Advertisement
The Rivoli opened on Queen Street West in the early 1980s, combining a restaurant, bar and small performance space at a time when that stretch of Queen Street was emerging as a hub for the city's alternative art, music and comedy scenes rather than the more commercial strip it later became. Its back room booked a mix of music, spoken word and sketch comedy, giving developing performers a low-stakes venue to test material in front of live audiences.
A launching pad for The Kids in the Hall
The Rivoli became particularly significant as an early home for the sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall, who performed regular live shows there in the mid-1980s before being discovered and eventually landing their own television series on CBC and later HBO. The venue's role in that troupe's development made it one of the more consequential small stages in Canadian comedy history, and it has continued operating as a music and event venue on Queen Street West in the decades since.
Advertisement
Sources
Continue reading
The Hudson's Bay Company
One of the oldest companies in the world sold most of what's now Canada to Canada itself in 1869, became a…
Uxbridge
Quaker settlers built Uxbridge's first mill in 1808. Two centuries later, the town has rebranded around a…
The Oak Ridges Moraine
A ridge of sand and gravel left by retreating glaciers roughly 12,000 years ago, the Oak Ridges Moraine…
Mississauga
In 1975 it had 235,000 people. Under one mayor's 36-year tenure, it grew into Canada's sixth-largest city —…