Founded in 1988 through a merger of Centre Stage Company and Toronto Free Theatre, Canadian Stage is a contemporary performing arts organization. Canadian Stage produces, presents, commissions, and collaborates with partners to put on performances. The charity performs its stage performances at three Toronto venues: The Bluma Appel Theatre at TO Live; The Berkley Street Theatre; and the High Park Amphitheatre. Other than its main performances, Canadian Stage runs education & outreach programs.

In F2018, Canadian Stage performed 17 different productions throughout the year, some of which were: King Lear, Heisenberg, and Picnic in the Cemetery. In 2018, Canadian Stage appointed a new award-winning theatre director, Brendan Healy. Throughout the season, nearly 100,000 people will attend Canadian Stage’s performances and workshops.

Through its education & outreach programs, Canadian Stage is committed to sharing its performances with people to enrich the experience for the audience. Canadian Stage runs student and educator workshops, and artist mentorship programs. The charity partners with York University to support the next generation of talent. Every year, a group of York theatre students help on stage, backstage and on creative teams for Canadian Stage’s Shakespeare in High Park production. This gives students the opportunity to work with industry professionals in performance, design, production and stage management.

Canadian Stage is a medium-sized charity with donations and special events revenues of $2.6m in F2017. The charity also collected $2.1m in box office revenue in F2017. Administrative costs are 7% of total revenues (excluding investment income) and fundraising costs are 21% of total donations. For every dollar donated to the charity, 73 cents go to its programs. This is outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending. Canadian Stage has $1.8m in cash and funds held in trust, and $566k in bank debt. Net reserves of $1.2m could cover annual program spending at the F2017 level for 2 months. However, almost all reserves are donor-endowed, reducing the charity’s net, non-donor endowed program cost coverage ratio to less than zero.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Canadian Stage. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 23, 2019 by Stefan Tetzlaff