Support our Community

The Actors’ Fund is the lifeline for Canada’s entertainment industry. Through compassionate and confidential support, we help entertainment professionals maintain their health, dignity and ability to work. 
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown, we have focused our work on providing emergency financial assistance and others supports to entertainment industry workers whose lives have been derailed by the pandemic. 
Reach out to The AFC for support with: short-term emergency financial aid, financial wellness, personal support and advocacy, and mental wellness.

The Smile Company is a registered charity that for over 50 years has existed to enrich the lives of seniors in care by presenting meaningful, well-crafted, professional musical theatre performances created just for them. We offer innovative programming and resources for care workers and family members, to animate interactions with loved ones in Long-Term Care, Retirement Homes, Seniors’ Active Living Centres, Rehabilitation Centres and Mental Health Facilities.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Smile continues to reach isolated communities during a time where connection is most essential. As we must do our part in keeping those most vulnerable safe through physical distancing, The Smile Company’s online offerings continue to provide these positive and essential experiences.

By producing uniquely tailored, collaborative workshops, ArtFolk creates a safe space wherein artists can experiment and take risks, while creatives are supported and challenged in the development of their original work. The ArtFolk Collective organically grows our theatrical community, honouring and valuing each other as ARTISTS, bringing us together as ArtFOLK.  

Unwrap Theatre strives to make theatre a significant piece of our culture and civic engagement – on equal field as the library, symphony, art gallery, and museum. We work towards this vision through presenting socially relevant works, incubating new work and new artists, and being strong activists by promoting theatrical awareness, appreciation, and accessibility.

Stream Stage offers shows, services, and support to get you back in front of your audiences with high quality, hassle free, LIVE online content.
Stream Stage was created by Daniel Abrahamson and Kayla James, a young, newly married couple in Toronto, ON with over a decade of experience in producing live theatre; including musical direction, direction, and choreography. We’ve added video editing, audio engineering, and camera technique to our arsenal to help theatres bring high quality live streaming to their audiences. Check us out on facebookand instagram @streamstageproductions. The show must go on!

Dandelion Theatre is a group of interdisciplinary artists focused on elevating the art of oral storytelling in a theatrical setting.  Our primary goal is to create immersive artistic experiences with oral storytelling being the foundational element of all of our creation.  But what does “immersive” mean to us?  Using our collective skill sets in our own areas of expertise we aim to create shows that engage all five senses in their full execution so that the work is not only physically immersive but holistically immersive.  Given that oral storytelling takes many forms in and of itself, our goal is to boil down any production to its most basic element: the word, and then work up from there.  Our shows are theatrical by nature, but they are not always explicitly “theatre”.  The purpose of storytelling is to provoke a specific emotional response and we want to utilize every tool in our arsenal to achieve that goal.  Through our pillars of Performance, Education, and Food, we hope to engage the arts community and the wider Toronto community in a larger discussion about how to make theatrical experience accessible to as many people as we can.

Do you miss live entertainment? Do you miss eating out at local restaurants and enjoying delicious food with friends and family? Look no further. “The New Local” in Toronto is the city’s newest most exciting way to bring local entertainment and food straight to your home. In these unprecedented times some of the best local establishments are closed for dine-in experiences. In an effort to combine their love of food and performing newlyweds and two of Toronto’s most sought after musical theatre performers Gabi Epstein (Stratford Festival/Mirvish/DORA Award) and Jeremy Lapalme (Stage West/Bain and Bernard Comedy/Rose Theatre) are teaming up with their favourite neighbourhood restaurants to bring you a series of live intimate virtual musical concerts that both entertain and celebrate local establishments.
Check out gabiepstein.com/news as well as @thenewlocalevents on Facebook for more info about our upcoming shows and give us a follow on Instagram @the.new.local
(poster design by Akiva Romer Segal)

What do you do with the one of the longest running live musical theatre event when live music and entertainment is lo longer possible?  You go ONLINE!

Singular Sensation Online! is a bi-weekly performing arts chat show celebrating the creativity and contributions of the performing arts community across Canada and beyond.

They are dedicated to shining a spotlight on our innovative and inspirational community through interviews, performances, promotional segments, giveaways and everything in between while offering a place to stay connected and informed on what’s happening online and onstage.

Past guests include TSN’s Michael Lansberg Canadian Screen Award winner Thom Allison, Broadway actor Bruce Dow, Canadian stage and screen actor Sheila McCarthy, Canadian director/choreographer David Connolly Juno Award winner Stacey Kay as well as many other SideBiz Studio vendors.

Singular Sensation Online! Is Hosted by musical theatre performer, director, voice actor and Sheridan alumni Jeni Walls and is co-produced by Jeni Walls and Canadian choreographer, actor and RAPA alumni Stephan Dickson (Stratford Festival, Stage West, TVO’s Odd Squad)

If you have an event, initiative or company you would like to promote through Singular Sensation Online!, drop them a line at singularsensationmondays@gmail.com. Give them a follow at @singular_sensation and subscribe to the Singular Sensation Online! YouTube channel. 

Musical Tokens is an online platform created to celebrate and empower womxn of colour in the Canadian musical theatre industry. Our goal is to highlight, educate, and uplift a wide variety of talent on and off the stage. Co-founded by Masini McDermott and Tara Jackson, we are inspired by the medley of talented womxn that are often labeled as tokens in Canadian musical theatre. The need for space in this community is vast. Musical Tokens is a place to network, learn, and support these remarkable artists. Our website features a variety of pages such as: general resources, articles, avenues of education, Tokens In Theatre, and of course, our Golden Tokens.  We also host a space called The Green Room that features our YouTube channel, Musical Tokens. We discuss a multitude of topics with BIPOC artists such as what we as a community face in the theatre industry. We are also on a multitude of social media platforms: Facebook (Musical Tokens), Instagram (@musicaltokens), and Twitter (@musicaltokens). Overall, our website
 is merely a resource for sharing, connecting and creating space for all womxn of colour. We see you, we need you, we appreciate you!

Let’s Grab Coffee podcast is for anyone interested in theatre in Canada and the people who make it happen. This podcast is hosted by Tyler Check with new episodes every week.

Are you curious what goes into creating, curating, and cultivating entertainment? Have you ever wondered what it takes to produce a Broadway Musical, A Hollywood Film, or a Basement Cabaret?!

The “I Wanna Be A Producer” podcast is for emerging creatives and producers looking to gain insight from established and respected producers about navigating the producing world and the theatre industry at large. 

Hosted & produced by Curtis Brown, with audio production by Kieran Niemand, Brown Stub Productions has assembled a dream team of Hollywood, Broadway, and West End Producers to bring you all the stories, anecdotes, and truths you’ve always wanted to know about where it all begins!  

New episodes drop every Monday!

Off 2 Broadway is a Toronto-based musical theatre podcast that discusses all things theatre here in Toronto, as well as New York City and beyond. Tara and Stefania chat bi-weekly, from the comfort of the car, because all the best conversations happen in the car.
A must listen for all musical theatre fans, both Canadian and abroad!

Tits and Teeth Podcast is dedicated to bringing listeners insight from some of the biggest stars and producers of our time, and has just wrapped their third season! Hosts Jennifer Thiessen and Kyla Musselman, two showgirls and actresses based in New York City and Toronto, wanted to shed some light on some of the ongoing issues happening in the arts, bringing dressing room banter to the outside world. “Artists have a crazy, unconventional life, and their stories are important and need to be shared.” says Thiessen. Light-hearted and funny, they chat to an all star line up of North Americaʼs finest theatre workers, all whilst sipping their guests’ favourite cocktail! “We started just wanting to share stories, but we have since realized how important is it for artists to have an active voice in the theatre community and we are excited to be apart of it,” says Musselman. The girls aim to give back to their communities by providing insightful, authentic and important conversations, with some of the best theatre artists in North America. Tits and Teeth Podcast is available on Apple iTunes, Google Play Podcast, Spotify and Stitcher. Instagram: @titsandteethpodcast | Twitter: @TeethTits

Voicing The Circle is a podcast geared toward themes in the performing arts. It is an Indigenous-led podcast
that will have guests from different backgrounds in performing arts, as well as different
ethnicities. Our conversations revolve around diversity in shows. What does being a storyteller
mean? A place to share our lived experience, our life in the arts. 
How do we make rehearsal spaces authentically safe for artists doing emotionally challenging work? Racial and
social justice in plays, musicals, etc. And more !
Our guests are encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences from within their own
comfort zone. The goal is to create a space where we can have these types of conversations under our own
terms. We are not here to “cancel” or “call out” any one individual, or organization, but to
highlight inequities and injustices as a greater whole. To further the dialogue on what we can be
doing better as “storytellers”. The hope is that through our guests’ lived experiences and
through conversations that we can create an opportunity for others to listen and reflect on these
types of issues.