The Shaw Festival is hopping across the pond — just not the one you might be thinking of.
The theatre festival based in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., will take up a three-year artistic residency at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre next year, marking Shaw’s first entry into the busy theatre scene on the other side of Lake Ontario.
The company will continue its operations in Niagara Region, but the partnership allows it to also mount several productions each year at Toronto’s lakeside venue, starting in October 2026.
“There’s always been a certain reticence about taking us to Toronto as opposed to drawing Toronto down to us,” Tim Carroll, Shaw Festival’s artistic director, said in an interview ahead of Sunday’s announcement.
“But this feels like the perfect sweet spot of giving the community in Toronto enough of what we do to create the addiction. And then if they want to get a really big hit, they have to come down to us.”
As it stands, he said, about a third of the Shaw’s audiences are local to Niagara Region, a third come up from the United States, and many of the rest are from Toronto, roughly 130 kilometres away.
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The news was announced ahead of the Shaw’s Sunday performance of “A Christmas Carol,” which was also the last show to be staged at the historic Royal George Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake before it’s rebuilt.
The venue, one of four theatres where the Shaw operates, was constructed during the First World War for soldiers training in Niagara Region, and was always meant to be temporary.
Now more than a century old, its clay foundation is failing.
The rebuild is expected to take about 30 months and cost upwards of $75-million.
It comes as the Shaw is reimagining its role. Earlier this year, it launched the campaign All. Together. Now., which includes a plan to get more people involved in the arts through classes and residency programs.
Carroll sees it as a way to build community and strengthen people’s connection to the Shaw.
That’s part of why the partnership with the Harbourfront Centre made so much sense, he said.
“We just really immediately felt that this would be a great synergy, that there’s such a focus on community at the Harbourfront and what they’re doing,” Carroll said.
“Our focus is on really connecting people and trying to get people back into live conversation.”
Like the Shaw, the Harbourfront Centre has been in a period of transformation.
The sprawling campus on Toronto’s waterfront had been struggling financially, so Harbourfront Centre CEO Cathy Loblaw was hired more than a year ago to help balance the books.
The organization stopped financially supporting two key draws to the picturesque grounds — the Power Plant contemporary art gallery and the Toronto International Festival of Authors — but brought back buskers and introduced a farmers market in the summer months.
It’s also due to become the temporary home of the Ontario Science Centre next year, after the provincial government abruptly closed the interactive museum last year, citing an engineering report about the building’s roof.
As for the partnership with the Shaw, it feels like a return to form in some ways, Loblaw said.
Back in 1998, Soulpepper Theatre had its inaugural season at the Harbourfront Centre before eventually relocating to the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in the Distillery District.
“It’s going back to our roots, but also stepping forward in a fresh new partnership — and a partnership that will bring new audiences to the Shaw,” Loblaw said.
Show titles and ticket information are due to be announced in March, with the first performances beginning in October.
© 2025 The Canadian Press