Toronto Stages Are Packed This Week, From Shakespeare Revivals to Journey's Farewell

Toronto's stages are unusually crowded this week. NEXT Magazine called it a "preposterous number of shows opening" in the first week of November, while Journey says goodbye at Scotiabank Arena and a sold-out Geese plays two nights at HISTORY. Here is what's on.

A wave of openings

New musicals include Mirvish's Our Little Secret, about long-lost relations, and Pepper Ghost's When You Close Your Eyes, about bad sisters. Dance Immersion is staging its Immersion Festival of Afrocentric dance, according to NEXT.

The new plays cover an eclectic range. Talk Is Free Theatre's All the Cows are Dead is about beef, Theatre Aurinko's Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons about citrus fruit, Harold Green Jewish Theatre's The Cut about circumcision, and Naomi Tessler's CAMP about Auschwitz.

Also running this week are Mirvish's Rumors of Fleetwood Mac, Minor Punctuations Theatre's Far-Flung Peoples, Scott Thompson's The Last Glory Hole and Alliance Française Toronto's C'est la vida. NEXT's critic singled out HYPROV, in which Whose Line Is It Anyway? star Colin Mochrie teams up with hypnotist Asad Mecci to help audiences lose their inhibitions.

At the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Mirvish's Operation Mincemeat continues with eight performances from Tuesday to Sunday. Seats range from $69.50 in the balcony to $209.50 for premium orchestra, with $79 same-day rush tickets when available, according to The Toronto Theatre Guide.

Shakespeare, without the drive to Stratford

Several productions bring Shakespeare to the city. National Ballet's Romeo and Juliet closes its "too-brief run" this week. Previews start for Canadian Stage's 40th-anniversary revival of Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) and for Evan Buliung's one-man Macbeth at Crow's.

Raoul Bhaneja's Hamlet (Solo) returns to Theatre Passe Muraille for three days only. Shakespeare BASH'd is presenting a public reading of Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday at Monarch Tavern.

A bookish week

Literary adaptations are well represented. De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail returns at Soulpepper. Eldritch Theatre's Call Centre of Cthulhu and Crow's much-extended A Fine Balance are in their final weeks; NEXT notes that A Fine Balance will be back in a few months.

Michael Healey's Rogers v. Rogers, adapted from Alexandra Posadzki's nonfiction book, returns in a Canadian Stage co-production at the Berkeley Street Theatre, with previews beginning Sunday, Nov. 8.

Concerts: a farewell and a sellout

Journey plays Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 4, for the last time on its Final Frontier Tour, NOW Toronto reports. Upper-bowl tickets were still on sale from $88.

New York indie band Geese plays HISTORY on Tuesday and Wednesday in support of its album Getting Killed. Both shows are sold out. NOW notes the album reached No. 96 on the Billboard 200 and that the band won International Group of the Year at the Brit Awards in 2026.

Vince Staples brings his album Cry Baby to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, with general admission from $53.57. Angine de Poitrine is also among the week's biggest acts, according to NOW.

Classical picks

On Tuesday at the Jane Mallett Theatre, pianist and composer Dinuk Wijeratne and the Canadian Chamber Orchestra performed his Gajaga Vannama for piano and string orchestra, from the orchestra's newly released recording Where the Light Breaks. The program also included works by Jessie Montgomery, Kareem Roustom, George Walker and Edvard Grieg.

The Toronto Lachrimae Festival is marking the 400th anniversary of John Dowland's death with five events. They include a chamber concert, an evensong, a lunchtime recital for two lutes, a community concert and an open mic at the Rivoli.