These can’t-miss Mirvish theatre productions will have you laughing, singing or swaying in your seats. Here’s what’s playing in 2025.
Toronto has the third-largest English-speaking theatre district in the world, and Mirvish Productions plays a huge role in the local scene.
Attending a Mirvish show is a local rite of passage, and there are productions for every taste. Here are electrifying shows—on now or coming up—that are worth planning your next visit around.
The Lion King
Now through August 30, 2025
Audiences have certainly been feeling the love for Disney’s The Lion King! But after multiple extensions and 345 shows in the past 10 months, the family-friendly blockbuster is finally ending its run at the end of this summer.
“The talent both on and off the Princess of Wales stage is exemplary,” notes producer David Mirvish. “They represent a new generation of artists and artisans, some of whom were not even born when the original Toronto production was staged in 2000.”
The hometown pride is justified—Elton John and Tim Rice’s critically acclaimed soundtrack is jaw-droppingly embodied through Julie Taymor’s award-winning stagecraft and electrifying performances by an all-Canadian cast.
Catch the Broadway sensation before its “circle of life” ends at the Princess of Wales Theatre at the end of August.
Beetlejuice
June 3 to July 19, 2025
Warning: this tongue-in-cheek stage adaptation of Beetlejuice is as kooky as it is spooky!
In the wake of her mother’s death, Lydia Deetz joins forces with the deceased couple haunting her new/their former home in order to get payback on her neglectful father. But when push comes to shove, the eccentric teen must team up with Beetlejuice—the deviously unpredictable poltergeist who’s not shy about his ulterior motives.
With an extravagant set that does justice to the iconography of the classic Tim Burton film, the music is equally bewitching. Songs like “Say My Name” and “Girl Scout” have even gone viral on TikTok, introducing a whole new generation to the 1988 classic long before the 2024 sequel was even announced.
Run to the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre for a show that is simply out of this netherworld!
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812
July 15 to August 24, 2025
A favourite of last year’s Toronto theatre season, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 had a sold-out run at Streetcar Crowsnest for a record-breaking 16 weeks. Now, the show is moving from its original home in the East End to downtown’s Entertainment District.
The distinctly Canadian production even made a splash at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards, taking home four awards, including Outstanding Musical Theatre Production.
Based on a scandalous 70-page excerpt of Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace, The Great Comet breathes new life into the nineteenth-century classic and musical theatre as a form. Merging Russian folk and classical music with indie rock and electronic dance music, Broadway icon Dave Malloy ensures there’s truly something for everyone.
You won’t want to miss the return of this coproduction of Crow’s Theatre and Musical Stage Company. The magic takes place this summer at the Royal Alexandra Theatre.
Pride & Prejudice* (*Sort Of)
July 22 to August 17, 2025
Back by popular demand, this anarchic twist on Jane Austen’s most iconic love story is returning to Toronto for a strictly limited time!
The smash hit and sold-out Pride & Prejudice* (*Sort Of) is a retelling of the torrid enemies-to-lovers affair between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy—but from the perspective of the household servants passing their time in limbo.
Originally co-produced by an assembly of powerhouse theatre companies throughout the UK, there’s no question why this show won the 2022 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy.
Look no further for the perfect weekend theatre escape or staycation! Experience all the intricacies of Regency era England from the comfort of the CAA Theatre—well, sort of!
Back to the Future: The Musical
July 23 to August 31, 2025
A blast from the past—the iconic 1985 blockbuster Back to the Future returns to the present in this electrifying stage adaptation.
Winner of the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Musical, Back to the Future: The Musical features original music by multi-Grammy winners Alan Silvestri (Avengers: Endgame) and Glen Ballard (Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”) as well as hit songs from the film’s soundtrack (“The Power of Love,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Earth Angel,” and “Back in Time.”)
Accidentally time-travelling to the year his parents met, Marty McFly must ensure his teenage parents fall in love to ensure his future existence and return to the present.
Whether you’re an 80s kid or a theatre kid (or both!), Back to the Future is, as New York Theatre Guide notes, an intergenerational story “about how the young can shape older generations’ futures [...] not just the other way around.”
If the nostalgia of this pop cultural touchstone doesn’t grab you, the gravity-defying DeLorean certainly will! Only at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre.
MJ The Musical
September 16 to November 2, 2025
The King of Pop needs no introduction. But perhaps his bio-musical does.
Written by Pulitzer-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, MJ The Musical focuses on the making of Michael Jackson’s 1992 “Dangerous” world tour, folding his legendary discography into pivotal events and details.
The story doesn’t shy away from his abusive childhood and eventual substance abuse but reveals a deeply human side to Jackson’s inescapable celebrity status.
By zeroing in on “one key moment in [someone’s history]”, renowned choreographer Christopher Wheeldon explains how the tour became “an anchor point for past storytelling and, perhaps, some kind of prophecy of what’s to come.”
Skepticism towards reviving a once-in-a-lifetime talent is understandable. But the 10-time Tony-Award-nominated production took home four awards in 2021, including Best Choreography and Best Actor in a Musical. The original cast recording was even nominated for Best Musical Theatre Album at the Grammy Awards.
If you’re visiting Toronto this fall, don’t stop till you’ve reached the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, because you won’t get enough once you’re there!
Tell Tale Harbour
September 23 to November 2, 2025
A musical adaptation of the award-winning 2013 Canadian comedy film The Grand Seduction, Tell Tale Harbour is making its Toronto debut after its sell-out premiere in Charlottetown!
Supported by the National Arts Centre’s prestigious National Creation Fund, co-creators Adam Brazier, Great Big Sea’s Alan Doyle, Bob Foster, and Edward Riche set out to celebrate “the people, the trials, and the triumphs of living in a small community in Atlantic Canada”.
Deep in the heart of Canada’s east coast, a once bountiful fishing village is struggling to survive. With the sudden closure of a prominent fish plant, not to mention half the population relocating to the mainland, the community needs a miracle. What they get is an opportunity: a state-of-the-art frozen french fry factory that could ensure stable employment.
The catch? The harbour needs a full-time resident doctor to secure the factory. And so begins the town’s elaborate ploy to charm the interim doctor into moving there for good.
A co-production with the Confederation Centre of the Arts, you can experience all the songs and laughs expected from an East Coast kitchen party right here at the Royal Alexandra Theatre!
Bright Star
September to November 2025
Based on a true story, the Tony-nominated Bright Star tells a sweeping tale of love and redemption set against the rich backdrop of the American South in the 1920s and ’40s.
Written and composed by Steve Martin (yes, that one!) and Edie Brickell, the project was born from their Grammy-winning collaboration on the 2013 bluegrass album Love Has Come for You—and in turn, the legend of the Iron Mountain Baby and the inspiration for the musical’s story.
Don’t miss the limited run of Bright Star at the CAA Theatre! Co-produced with Garner Theatre Productions, this Canadian premiere is sure to burn bright.
Ava: The Secret Conversations
November 2025
It’s the height of Hollywood’s Golden Age, and legendary Ava Gardner is sitting with journalist Peter Evans for a series of interviews about the femme fatale’s off-camera life—from her marriages to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, to her fraught relationship with Howard Hughes.
These conversations would later become the basis of Gardner’s autobiography, and even later, Ava: The Secret Conversations.
Initially barred from publication, Evans’ record of a bygone era was published 25 years later with permission from Gardner’s estate. This caught the attention of Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-nominated Elizabeth McGovern, who began to reimagine the conversations between Gardner and Evans onstage.
Written and performed by McGovern herself, Ava: The Secret Conversations is an electric two-hander that also features Aaron Costa Ganis as Evans. Catch the Canadian premiere of what Broadway World deems an “unapologetically climactic” production at the CAA Theatre this fall.
The Woman in Black
December 2025 to January 2026
If the title rings a bell, you may be thinking of the 2011 film adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel, which was Daniel Radcliffe’s first project after the Harry Potter series ended.
What you might not know is that before The Woman in Black was a movie, it was a play! From its 1989 premiere to its closure in 2023, this production remains the second-longest-running non-musical play in London’s West End.
In Stephen Mallatratt’s stage adaptation, we follow a lawyer who hires a local actor to help him tell the story of his haunting encounters with the Woman in Black, in hopes of exorcising the fear that grips his soul. But as his darkest memories are brought to life, something deeper begins to stir.
After 33 years and over 13,000 performances in London, director Robin Herford’s original gripping production is now touring North America. Better go… who knows what the Woman will do if you miss the only Canadian stop at the CAA Theatre?
