Did you know that your version of Internet Explorer is out of date?
To get the best possible experience using our website we recommend downloading one of the browsers below.

Internet Explorer 10, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari.

Resonating with Toronto’s civic, community and cultural milieu – Crow’s Theatre at Streetcar Crowsnest adapts and evolves as the social, economic, cultural environment of the city adapts and evolves. Crow’s Theatre is distinguished as a preeminent cultural destination for its far-reaching imagination, ideas, exchange, diversity and grassroots belief in how artists and their work can change and sustain the life of communities. Crow’s Theatre is accessible to people of all backgrounds and ages. Crow’s Theatre is a catalyst in the community focusing on transformative experiences in unexpected places through the universality of the arts.
 
In our home at Streetcar Crowsnest, Crow’s Theatre is a unique addition to the ecology of Toronto’s non-profit arts scene, filling a long-standing need for a year-round venue in the East End of Toronto. In our third year, Crow’s has quickly become a stimulant for a year-round flourishing arts and events space.
 
A city benefits from cultural leadership, participation, civic engagement, and a vibrant cultural life. Crow’s Theatre is designed to engage Torontonians to value, support and be inspired by the arts.
 
Crow’s Theatre offers a diverse and expansive range of programming based on scale, discipline, practice, geographic location, community engagement and audience impact.
 
Crow’s Theatre is also committed to engaging, inspiring and entertaining families and young audiences throughout the season with dedicated family programming. Beyond enriching the quality of a family outing, Streetcar Crowsnest is designed to foster an enduring appreciation and understanding of the arts.
 

ARTISTIC MISSION / VISION

To be the anchor performing arts hub in Toronto’s east end, forging a new and adventurous audience for live art in the heart of one of Toronto’s most dynamic neighbourhoods.
 

MANDATE 

We ignite passionate and enduring engagement between our audiences and artists by creating, producing, and promoting unforgettable theatre that examines and illuminates the pivotal narratives of our times.
 
We are a content-led company. We seed projects and collaborations with Canadian artists and companies that are engaged in the examination of our culture’s pivotal narratives in ways that are direct yet complex, entertaining and challenging; a process that leads us to regularly reconsider, reimagine and redefine the possibilities of the theatre.
 
We actively seek out expertise outside of the theatre milieu in order to identify or understand stories that are of vital and pressing concern for our audience and artists.
 
Crow’s values work that can be delivered with rigour, precision, intelligence and beauty.
 
We create work to live beyond its premiere production. We extend the life of work that we create through co-productions, tours, and remounts or by promoting and brokering new productions by other companies across the country and abroad.
 
We host work from visiting Canadian and international artists, that complements what we do, builds long term collaborations, and challenges us in our practice.
 
Crow’s Theatre commissions, and partners with others to create unrivalled year-round programming that fortifies the place of the performing arts in the lives of artists, neighbourhoods and families – creating a vibrant, multi-purpose cultural hub for the Toronto’s East End.
 
We teach, train, and mentor artists at all levels of ability through a wide range of programs.
 

THE JOURNEY SO FAR 

Since 1983, Crow’s Theatre has persevered as a leading force in new play creation in the Canadian theatre landscape – without a home of its own. In 2010, Crow’s embarked on a strategic review of the company. We acknowledged Crow’s artistic strengths, as well as the challenges and threats to Crow’s artistic and financial subsistence – broadly shared by other theatre companies who, like our own, are developing new Canadian theatre and artists.
 
We recognized an opportunity in a culturally underserved part of the city – one in which we lived. This was Toronto’s East End. Could we grow a new audience in the East End? Could we create a new business model to make this possible? Could we continue to expand the definition of “our work” to include other perspectives, voices, companies, art forms, without losing our own artistic core and the coherence of our artistic exploration?
 
This led to a new plan that would see Crow’s transform from being a “nomadic new-play producer” to a “venue-based theatre and neighbourhood arts centre,” made sustainable with a unique social enterprise.
 
This new vision and re-invention for the company was designed to transform our challenges into opportunities, and provide increased resources, reach and impact for the company for decades to come.