Victorian whisky tank houses hold Toronto's most flexible stage. The Marilyn and Charles Baillie Theatre is the largest room of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts at 50 Tank House Lane, the theatre complex built into Tank Houses 9 and 10 of the 19th-century Gooderham and Worts distillery in the Distillery District. KPMB Architects' celebrated conversion opened on 15 January 2006 as the shared home of Soulpepper Theatre Company and George Brown College's theatre school - four theatres, four studios, classrooms and a public atrium with cafe threaded through the industrial brick. The Baillie - named for TD Bank chairman-turned-arts-patron Charles Baillie and his wife Marilyn - is a shape-shifter: within a day the room converts between a 385-seat proscenium, a 260-seat thrust and a 302-seat arena, under a full catwalk ceiling giving complete access to the lighting grid. It debuted as Toronto's first thrust stage with Soulpepper's 2006 King Lear, and its first five months alone held classical theatre, an opera, a jazz festival and a full-scale musical - a range that has stayed typical. Soulpepper's year-round repertory anchors the calendar, joined by George Brown's graduating productions, the Toronto Fringe and a steady run of concerts and community events, with the Stage Door Cafe serving the atrium whether or not you hold a ticket. The Distillery District's pedestrian lanes, galleries and restaurants surround the building - one of the rare theatres anywhere whose lobby experience begins a whole neighbourhood before the doors. The complex's name honours philanthropist David Young's founding gift, and the design philosophy - KPMB kept the tank houses' timber columns and brick shells visible throughout - won architecture awards for proving heritage industrial space could hold technically modern theatres. Backstage the building runs deep: wardrobe production shops, rehearsal studios and the George Brown student lounge share the footprint, meaning the Baillie's audiences routinely pass tomorrow's actors running lines in the atrium on their way to watch today's.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 50 Tank House Lane, Toronto, Canada, M5A 3C4

Website: https://www.youngcentre.ca

Capacity: 385

Opening Date: 15/01/2006

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