Recent history
Since 1979, the Elgin Theatre has served as one of the hosts to the annual Toronto International Film Festival.[6]
In 1981, the Ontario Heritage Foundation bought the structure from Famous Players.[2] The Elgin was closed as a movie theatre on November 15, 1981;[7] the final film presented at the theatre was What the Swedish Butler Saw.[8] From March 1985 through March 1987 the musical Cats was very successfully presented in the essentially unrestored Elgin, showing the viability of the theatre. The building closed in 1987 for a full restoration of the sister theaters and reopened in 1989.
In 1991, Dr. David Griesinger and Steve Barbar of Lexicon, Inc., at the request of acousticians Neil Muncy and Robert Tanner, installed the first production LARES system, an electroacoustic enhancement system that augments architectural acoustics, in the Elgin Theatre. This initial LARES system used two microphones placed at the balcony's front edge to pick up sound from the stage. The microphone signals were digitized and processed in two mainframe computers, and the resulting signals were sent to 56 loudspeakers in the main ceiling and 60 under the balcony, for the purpose of providing additional intelligibility and ambience.[9][10]
The Elgin Theatre housed the world premiere of the Napoleon musical in 1994, which later transferred to London's West End in 2000. In 1995, it was home to The Who's Tommy musical. From 1996 to 2022, Ross Petty Productions staged pantomimes at the Elgin Theatre each Christmas season.[11][12]
From February 10 to 14, 2004, Conan O'Brien taped four episodes of NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien from the Elgin Theatre.[13] The visit came about via Toronto City Council's CDN$1 million (~US$750,000 at the time) payment to NBC to have the U.S. national television program visit Toronto for a week of shows, part of the overall council-funded PR effort of promoting Toronto as a tourist destination for Americans in the wake of the widely publicized summer 2003 Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic that adversely impacted the city's tourism industry.[14] Most of the guests on the four shows, including the stand-up comedy performers and musical acts, were Canadians: Mike Myers, Michael J. Fox, Jim Carrey, Eric McCormack, Ron James, Nickelback, Stompin' Tom Connors, and Barenaked Ladies.
The Elgin Theatre played host to the taping of Bryan Adams in Concert for the American broadcast of Great Performances on PBS. The show was filmed in July 2014 and first aired on March 1, 2015.[15]
