Michael Torontow News

The full cast, band and creative team have been revealed for director Jillian Keiley’s second season of Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s Come From Away, set to run June 28, 2024 - September 1, 2024, at the Joseph R Smallwood Arts & Culture Centre in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Talk Is Free Theatre (TIFT) has partnered with New Zealand-based producer A Mulled Whine to bring a collection of their celebrated productions to Auckland this month for the Talk Is Free Theatre Festival, continuing their tradition of touring tailor-adapted immersive projects around the world.

The sold out run of acclaimed director Jillian Keiley’s new production of Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s Come From Away, officially opens tomorrow night at the Joseph R. Smallwood Arts & Culture Centre in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. See photos from the first production of the show in its hometown!

Talk Is Free Theatre Producer & CEO Arkady Spivak and Artistic Director Michael Torontow announced their 2023/24 season, which leaps into new territory (sometimes literally) and challenges the boundaries that exist to be pushed, dismantled, or destroyed–a season full of new works and past favourites on stages (and in forests) not just at home in Barrie, Ontario, but across the far reaches of the planet to South America, New Zealand, and the South Pacific.

Original Broadway cast members Petrina Bromley, who will play Beverley & Others and Astrid Van Wieren who will play Diane & Others. Bromley and Wieren played each other's roles in the original production of the musical.

Artistic Director Michael Torontow has announced further programming plans for a concurrent fall/winter 2022/23 season in Barrie and in Argentina.

Artistic Director Michael Torontow has announced further programming plans for a concurrent fall/winter 2022/23 season in Barrie and in Argentina.

Giants in the Sky, a two-weekend performance festival, will take over rooftops and unexpected spots in Barrie, Ontario starting September 9. Performances will run over the course of two weekends, September 9-11, 2022 and September 16-18, 2022, and are free to the public.

At a press conference held at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) announced 235 nominations for the 42nd Annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards, which recognize excellence in professional theatre, dance and opera in Toronto.

Giants in the Sky, a two-weekend performance festival, will take over rooftops and unexpected spots in Barrie, Ontario starting September 9. Performances will run over the course of two weekends, September 9-11, 2022 and September 16-18, 2022, and are free to the public.

July 1st not only marks Canada Day but it is also the beginning of Theatre Collingwood's 2022 PORCHSIDE FESTIVAL! 

Talk Is Free Theatre Producer and CEO Arkady Spivak announced that their highly anticipated production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” will be arriving in Toronto this June.

Today, TIFT Artistic Director Michael Torontow and CEO Arkady Spivak announced details of the company's upcoming Winter Season of eclectic in-person, online and hybrid theatrical experiences. The winter programming invites audiences to engage with fresh perspectives on a variety of divisive subjects faced today.   

Today Artistic Producer Arkady Spivak announced a consortium program of emerging voices in artistic direction and curation, as well as a restructuring for Talk Is Free Theatre.

TIFT Artistic Producer Arkady Spivak announced today that a limited number of tickets are now on sale for the hit production of Into the Woods running from October 28 to 30, 2021 at the historic Winter Garden Theatre Centre.

Running October 28 to 31, 2021, Into the Woods will be staged in the last operating double-decker theatre in the world. The audience will experience Act One in The Elgin Theatre and, at intermission, will travel upstairs to the Winter Garden Theatre for Act Two.

Today, TIFT Artistic Producer Arkady Spivak announced the new project, the Canadian Musical Theatre Database. This inclusive online resource will advocate for greater access, leading to increased production of Canadian musicals by professional, community and youth theatre companies, as well as by student productions within the education sector.  

The first reading is Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw and directed by Richard Ouzounian to be streamed on April 7, 2021 at 7pm.  This this one-time event will star Tony Award winner Len Cariou, best known for his portrayal of 'Sweeney Todd' in the original cast of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Film, Television and Stage icon Ed Asner.

Today Artistic Producer Arkady Spivak announced that Talk Is Free Theatre will present a lineup of intimate live performances this September that exemplify the resilience, fortitude, and determination of the human spirit during these times.

Canada's acclaimed Talk is Free Theatre (TIFT) is coming to the Adelaide Fringe for the first time with three site-specific, immersive productions. For TIFT's inaugural year at the Adelaide Fringe, they have partnered with the prolific and adventurous, Hartstone-Kitney Productions, a South Australia based theatrical producing livewire theatre which will help bring to life an annual Canada Capsule at the Adelaide Fringe.