The Top 10 Toronto theatre productions of 2024

While arts organizations — including theatre companies and festivals — continue to struggle as we emerge from the pandemic, it’s good to know that great theatre is still possible.

Some of the shows on this list might seem, well, modestly scaled; I can’t remember the last time I was impressed with so many productions featuring one- and two-person casts. Perhaps this is a response to economic challenges and bottom lines. Large ensembles are expensive, especially when factoring in standbys and alternates in case actors get sick.

On the other hand, this list contains one of the most ambitious, large-scaled shows Toronto has seen in recent years. Event theatre isn’t dead; it’s just more of a gamble in an already risky environment.

Another intriguing theme that emerged this year was the use of improv and chance, proving that audiences are hungry for unique, one-of-a-kind experiences that streaming services can’t deliver.

Here are my favourite Toronto shows this year. One caveat: I didn’t see enough at Stratford or Shaw to include them. I hope to see more there in 2025. Memorable remounts/extensions are mentioned at the end, as well as some runners-up.

1. Age is a Feeling

Soulpepper/Soho Theatre/Haley McGee Productions, in association with Luminato, May 29 to June 23

An unnamed woman (writer/performer Haley McGee) chronicles episodes from her life from her mid-20s through to old age, each suggested by a word on an envelope attached to one of 12 floral arrangements. The kicker? The audience chooses which words to hear stories about; the other memories, like key moments from everyone’s lives, remain lost except to the person who lived them. McGee’s solo show — her fifth and like many directed by Mitchell Cushman — is her most mature yet, an expansive, generous, funny and achingly true look at what it means to be alive. See my review here.

2. The Inheritance Parts 1 and 2

Canadian Stage, March 22 to April 14

One of my biggest concerns about the conservative wave sweeping much of the world is that arts companies, after their grants shrink, might shy away from the ambitious and risky in favour of austerity and safety. There was nothing austere or safe about Matthew Lopez’s epic, two-part look at what a post-AIDS crisis generation of queer people inherited from the sacrifices and examples of their elders, both living and dead. Unabashedly literary yet frankly contemporary and sexy, the play examined class, legacy and ethics, all wrapped up in an absorbing narrative. Director Brendan Healy, casting with an eye to diversity and a meta-theatrical symbolism (pioneering queer playwright Daniel MacIvor played the E.M. Forster figure, Morgan), used every inch of the cavernous Bluma Appel to give this work the massive canvas it needed. Unforgettable. See my review here.

3. Big Stuff

A Baram and Snieckus Production in association with Crow’s Theatre, November 12 to December 22

A toaster or three; a knitting needle; an old LP record. These might seem like innocuous items, but as Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus made us realize at their marvel of a show, the memories such things hold for people can be as big and significant as life itself. Expertly blending their own story of meeting each other, making comedy, moving to the States for work and then moving back to care for elderly parents, the two, carefully guided by director Kat Sandler, integrated bits of improv and audience participation in the gentlest and most artful way imaginable. The result was transcendent, especially in one of the closing moments, when the spirit of shared humanity brought more poignant meaning to the phrase “holding space for...” than the entire Wicked press tour. Fingers crossed it tours the country, continent — and world. See my review here.