Royal Alexandra Theatre
A masterpiece of beaux-arts architecture, the historic Royal Alexandra is Toronto’s senior theatre and, at 108, never having been converted to any other use, the oldest continuously operating legitimate theatre in North America.
The Royal Alexandra embodies the ambition of the young Toronto stock broker Cawthra Mulock, who sought to put his home town on the cultural map by building for it “the finest theatre on the continent.” What he and his architect – John M. Lyle – created has since been called “an Edwardian jewel-box”, a treasure chest of imported marble, hand-carved cherry and walnut, fine silks and velvets, crystal chandeliers and ornate, gilded plaster – all constructed on the city’s first steel-framed structure (allowing cantilevered balconies, with no internal pillars to obstruct lines of sight) – and over a huge ice-pit that made this theatre one of the first “air conditioned” buildings in North America.
B C G Toronto Guide © Simon Newbound
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