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If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Two years ago, the Second City — Toronto’s storied improv sketch comedy troupe — was forced out of its home in the Entertainment District to make way for a new highrise residential building. That wasn’t the first time the organization has moved due to private development. Some 15 years earlier, the company vacated its venue at Blue Jays Way when it was also slated for redevelopment.
So later this fall, it seems fitting the company will take up residence at, you guessed it, a recently constructed highrise.
The Second City is to officially open its new location at One York Street on Nov. 30, with public performances beginning the following month. The sprawling 28,700-square-foot venue will feature three theatres, nine training centre studios, a restaurant and an ode to the company’s colourful past.
The new space will allow for “an incredibly exciting expansion in programming and opportunities for our artists and students alike,” said Carly Heffernan, creative director of the Second City Toronto. “We’re thrilled to be able to bring more variety in the programming that hits our stages and engage even more artists from the exceptional Toronto comedy community.”
The centrepiece of the venue is the Second City’s new 244-seat Mainstage Theatre, the largest performance space on site. The theatre opens in early December with three shows, including the holiday-themed “The Second City’s Guide to Surviving the Holidays” and “Improv Holiday Brunch.”
The second performance space, Theatre ’73 (its name a nod to the year Second City arrived in Toronto), can accommodate 170 patrons. Its first show is a zany original comedy revue, “Jingle Bell Ruckus.”
The 70-seat John Candy Box Theatre will serve as the company’s new student theatre, a space for young comedians in the Second City’s training centre to hone their craft. The space is named in honour of the late Canadian comedian who started his career in the Second City’s ensemble and the cast of the Emmy-winning TV show “SCTV” before going on to become a movie star.
The intimate theatre will also include a piece of Toronto comedy history, fitted with a portion of the original hardwood floor from the Second City’s original location in Toronto. It’s from the stage upon which Candy performed, along with other comedy titans including Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy and Mike Myers.
“We are thrilled to carry forward an incredible piece of the Second City’s history in the John Candy Box Theatre where our current and future students will get to literally tread the same boards as Second City icons,” said Heffernan.
Managing artistic director Julie Dumais Osborne said the expanded space will allow the company to offer a wider range of classes, community events and performance opportunities for students.
In the lobby, floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the soon-to-open Love Park, featuring a heart-shaped pond. The communal lobby area will also house a bar and a restaurant by Oliver & Bonacini.
The space, part of a 35-storey mixed-use development constructed in 2016, was originally intended for Target but became vacant when the retail chain left the Canadian market.
The new venue is the Second City’s sixth location in Toronto in nearly five decades. The company opened in Toronto in 1973 at a theatre on Adelaide Street. The following year, it moved to the Old Fire Hall on Lombard Street. In 1997, it moved again to another venue on Blue Jays Way. From 2005 to 2020, the troupe was on Mercer Street, in the heart of the city’s Entertainment District. The company moved to a temporary location on Danforth Avenue last year as the new venue was completed.
The Second City’s Toronto move comes amid a year of transformation for the company, which traces its roots to Chicago. The organization also recently announced it was opening a new location in New York City. Last year, the organization was sold to a New York private equity group, the first change in ownership since the 1980s.
Editor’s note — Oct. 31, 2022. This story has been revised to reflect the fact that Second City opened in Toronto in 1973 at a theatre on Adelaide Street.
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