page_title: Ed Mirvish Theatre
section_title: Live theatre
hierarchical_section_title: Ed Mirvish Theatre / History / Live theatre
caption_attribution_description: Inside the Canon Theatre, Toronto, Canada
context_page_description: The Ed Mirvish Theatre is a historic film and play theatre in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was initially known as the Pantages Theatre, then became the Imperial Theatre and later the Canon Theatre, before it was renamed in honour of Ed Mirvish, a well-known businessman and theatre impresario. The theatre was first opened in 1920 and is located near Yonge-Dundas Square.
context_section_description: After a long, bitter legal fight, Famous Players eventually agreed to sell their portions of the original theatre and Yonge Street entrance to Cineplex Odeon, but the victory was a pyrrhic one:  as was standard practice for Famous Players when they sold a major downtown theatre property, they attached a condition to the sale forbidding Cineplex from ever again using the theatre for motion pictures. The last film ever to play in the Pantages Cinema was Die Hard.
  Even before the Pantages closed to movies on August 26, 1988, Garth Drabinsky had a vision for restoring the complete theatre intact to its original 1920 look and creating a new live entertainment division of Cineplex Odeon. At the time, Toronto was experiencing a renaissance in live theatre, and there was an interest both to restore large historic theatres; such as the ambitious restoration at the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre by the Ontario Heritage Foundation only one block to the south, and to create more venues that could attract big successful Broadway shows to Toronto, such as the successful runs that Cats had enjoyed earlier in the 1980s.
  With the successful acquisition of Famous Players' remaining portions of the theatre, it was announced that the cinema would close and be restored to its former 1920 glory. Work began in earnest immediately following the closing of the cinema, with interior demolition work removing all the 1973 partition walls, floors, fire exits and passageways, as well as excavating the entire basement underneath the original theatre floor to allow for deeper below grade spaces to accommodate modern live theatre amenities. All of the original plasterwork, some of which had been hidden behind drywall during the 1973 multiplexing, was kept and restored. The original paint colours from 1920 were researched, with experts on scaffolds using fine instruments to pick away layer after layer of paint.  Black and white original photos were studied to faithfully recreate everything from the fountain on the grand staircase, to the ticket box in the Yonge Street link, to the ornate marquee and canopy on Yonge Street with the original Pantages vertical as it had looked at its original opening in 1920.
  The "new" 2,200-seat Pantages reopened in 1989 with its first legitimate theatre production, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical The Phantom of the Opera, starring Colm Wilkinson and Rebecca Caine, which played at the Pantages for more than a decade.
  The Pantages was operated by a division of Cineplex Odeon known as Livent. After a battle for control of Cineplex between its founder, Garth Drabinsky, and Cineplex Odeon's majority shareholder, MCA, Livent became an independent company, with no ties to the parent corporation. Livent continued to own and operate the Pantages until 1999, when the theatre was purchased, along with other assets of the bankrupt Livent, by Clear Channel Entertainment.
  Ownership fell to Live Nation, owners of Broadway Across Canada and Broadway Across America, a subsidiary of Clear Channel, which turned management of the facility over to Mirvish Productions, also giving Mirvish right of first negotiation should the theatre ever be put up for sale.
  In July, 2001, Live Nation announced a sponsorship for the theatre from Canon Canada, Inc. In recognition of this sponsorship, the theatre was renamed the Canon Theatre.
  On January 24, 2008, Key Brand Entertainment announced that it had acquired all of Live Nation's North American theatrical assets. Key Brand Entertainment is owned and controlled by British theatre producer John Gore and led by entertainment industry veteran Thomas B. McGrath.  As part of the financing arrangements for the purchase of Live Nation's assets, Key Brand agreed to sell both the Canon Theatre and the nearby Panasonic Theatre.  Honouring the original lease agreement between Mirvish Productions and Live Nation, Key Brand offered Mirvish Productions the right of first negotiation and Mirvish Productions successfully bid to purchase both theatres.
  This bid prompted Toronto-based theatre producer Aubrey Dan, of Dancap P
caption: Lobby of the Mirvish Theatre
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