SonyaSweater weather is here and we are embracing all that comes with it! It’s also SPOOKY SEASON so we’ve rounded up a few of our favourite haunts. Grab your friends and check out what’s happening in and around Toronto this month!
Nuit Blanche (Toronto): October 1 to 2. From 7 pm to 7 am. The much love all-night free arts event takes over the city streets, public spaces, galleries and other venues. Filled with contemporary art installations, the festival expands further this year to include areas of the GTA. Led by inaugural Artistic Director Dr. Julie Nagam, Nuit Blanche’s curatorial theme, The Space Between Us, invites artists to transform the city by creatively sharing stories about their connection to place while bridging cultures and connecting with communities and the environment. Plan ahead and wear comfortable shoes. Complete list of what’s happening and where can be found on their site.
Luminous Trails: augmented reality social experience invites visitors to co-create and interact with the mystical streets of Toronto. Artists: Artifacts Studio Ltd. , Roozbeh Moayyedian, Elahe Rostami, AmirBahador Rostami, Can Baris Candan, Emad Moradian
Singin’ in the Rain: Princess of Wales Theatre until October 23. This highly entertaining classic musical is a splashy production guaranteed to make you smile! The fun story takes place in the 1920s when silent films turned into talking films in this OG of rom-coms. The performers sing, dance, and held our attention seamlessly. We didn’t want this one to end! For a real immersive experience grab your tickets up front in the first two rows.
SINGING IN THE RAIN, , Director-JONATHAN CHURCH, Set and Costume Designer – SIMON HIGLETT, Choreographer – ANDREW WRIGHT, Lighting Designer – TIM MITCHELL, Video Designer – STUART BURT CDG, The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, 2022, Credit: Johan Persson
Denyse Thomasos: Just Beyond Exhibition at the AGO: Opens October 5. The late Trinidadian-Canadian artist Denyse Thomasos (1964-2012) left an indelible, yet frequently overlooked, mark on contemporary painting. A career retrospective, Denyse Thomasos: just beyond, brings together more than 70 paintings and works on paper, many rarely seen, to show how she challenged the limits of abstraction, infusing personal and political content onto her canvases through the innovative use of formalist techniques. Through pattern, scale and repetition, Thomasos conveys the vastness of events such as the transatlantic slave trade without exploiting the images of those who were most affected.
While you’re there, visitors have the chance to contribute to the “growing” of a community garden using floral and geometric pieces created using a Cricut machine. AGO Art Carts will follow suit of the changing season and invite visitors to reflect on the urban scenes and architecture on view in the upcoming exhibition Denyse Thomasos: just beyond, using various Cricut materials cut into shapes to create their own cityscapes.
Denyse Thomasos. Metropolis, 2007. Acrylic, charcoal, porous-point marker on canvas, unframed: 214 x 335.6 x 3.5 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario. Purchased with the assistance of the Toronto International Art Fair 2007 Opening Night Preview, and with the Financial Support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program, 2008. © The Estate of Denyse Thomasos and Olga Korper Gallery. 2007/241
Lost and Beautiful: New Italian Cinema: TIFF Bell Lightbox. October 14 to November 29. TIFF spotlights internationally celebrated contemporary Italian filmmakers — Alessandro Comodin, Michelangelo Frammartino, Pietro Marcello, and Alice Rohrwacher — who have revitalized their national cinema with uncompromising and visionary films. Full schedule on their site.
imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival: In-person October 18 to 23. Online October 24 to 30. The world’s largest Indigenous festival showcasing film, video, audio, and digital + interactive media made by Indigenous screen-content creators. This year’s Festival will feature over 100 short films curated into 13 programs, plus 17 feature films, by Indigenous creators from around the world. The Festival presents compelling and distinctive works from Canada and around the globe, reflecting the diversity of Indigenous nations and illustrating the vitality and dynamism of Indigenous arts, perspectives, and cultures in contemporary media. NOTE: the return of TD Free Friday at the 2022 Festival where tickets to all screenings on Friday, October 21, 2022, will be free.
Karine Giboulo: Housewarming: Gardiner Museum. Opens October 20. Enter a world at once familiar and uncanny. Montreal-based artist Karine Giboulo invites visitors into an immersive reimagining of her home. Brought to life by over 500 miniature polymer clay figures, this is no ordinary house. The figures tell stories that unfold inside, or on, household furniture, appliances, and everyday objects. Karine Giboulo is a self-taught artist based in Montreal. She has presented more than thirty solo exhibitions, including at the McMichael Canadian Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario and the Musées de la Civilisation du Québec. Her work has been featured in major group exhibitions such as Errance sans retour at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec in 2021-2022 and Joueuses / joueurs, énigmes et jeux d’esprit en art contemporain at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal in 2019. Her work can be found in many public and private collections including the Musée National des Beaux-Arts de Québec, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and the Royal Bank of Canada.
Mean Girls: October 25 – November 27. Princess of Wales Theatre. You can sit with us at this musical coming to Toronto! Direct from Broadway, Mean Girls is the hilarious hit musical from an award-winning creative team, including book writer Tina Fey (30 Rock), composer Jeff Richmond (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), lyricist Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde) and director Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon). The story follows a teenage girl as she navigates her way through the American high school social scene after being homeschooled by her parents.
(L-R): English Bernhardt (Cady Heron), Jasmine Rogers (Gretchen Wieners), Nadina Hassan (Regina George), and Morgan Ashley Bryant (Karen Smith) – Credit: © 2022 Jenny Anderson
Legends of Horror at Casa Loma: September 29 to October 31. Welcome to HELL. Your worst nightmares comes to life once again in this epic horror experience that spans the grounds of Toronto’s famous (maybe actually for realz haunted) Casa Loma. The path steers you through the bowels of the castle experiencing all things Halloween. Don’t worry, they have a “no touch” policy. Wear your running shoes…just in case. Half way point is a well deserved pit-stop at the. Captain Morgan’s bar to refuel your confidence before you move on. Go cautiously into the night. Family friendly hours also available with earlier daylight entries and no freaky clowns (or other actors) that jump out at you.
Zombie Apocalypse: Casa Loma: October 13 to November 5. Step into the Biolux pharmaceutical facility and see if you can survive ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, Toronto’s newest and largest zombie themed haunted house. Guests will start in the unsettling Biolux showrooms, only to uncover the grisly secrets in the Biolux labs, full of gruesome experiments and maniacal scientists. Then, they explore the survivor camps as the last of humanity struggles in a doomed battle against the zombie apocalypse. Step into a two-story historic building with Zombies lurking around every corner. Throughout this 45-minute experience the audience is immersed in walk through rooms and haunting displays with live actors and theatrical design.
Jaymes White Howland Inn Seance (somewhere in Toronto): Until November 29. The wildly popular spooky season in-person experience returns and it will probably keep you up at night. Mindreader and paranormal expert Jaymes White invites the curious to one of Canada’s most haunted inns to try and conjure up the spirits that have reported roamed the halls. Not for the faint of heart but don’t let that deter you from this incredible night out complete with creepy dolls and Ouija boards. Go with an open mind and follow the instructions and no one, or thing, will follow you home.
The Queen’s Ball: A Bridgerton Experience: Opens October 6. You’re invited to attend the Queen’s Ball! Fans of the Netflix series will want to get in on this extravagant experience located downtown Toronto. Attendees will be lavished with entertainment with music, dance, and acrobats in a regal setting fit for royalty. Will you be the chosen Diamond? Or the latest shocker in Lady Whistledown’s society papers.
Shocktober Fest: Prefer to stay home? Get your fill of all things creepy with another season of thrills and chills with film titles offered by Hollywood Suite on Demand including the premiere of their original production Cinema A to Z: Monsters on October 16, 2022, and the next two episodes in their rollout of the Blumhouse Into The Dark anthology on October 31, titled Uncanny Annie and The Body. Viewers can also stream 100 Halloween favourites on Hollywood Suite On Demand starting October 1, 2022.
Horror lovers can also catch a sneak peek of the docuseries in person at a special FREE screening of Ridley Scott’s Legend (1985) on October 12 at the Revue Cinema in Toronto. Hosted by Hollywood Suite’s very own cinematic encyclopedia Cam Maitland, the fun begins at 7pm ET. Tickets are available on the Revue Cinema’s website.