‘Spirited Away’ to make North American stage première at Mirvish in Toronto

‘Spirited Away’ to make North American stage première at Mirvish in Toronto

TORONTO - The stage adaptation of "Spirited Away" will have its North American première in Toronto.

Mirvish says the international touring production will play a 15-week engagement at the Princess of Wales Theatre from May 6 to Aug. 15, 2027.

The theatre company says the show comes to Toronto "direct from Japan" and will be performed in Japanese with English subtitles by a company of 50 actors, puppeteers and musicians.

The show, which was created by Japanese entertainment company TOHO, brings to the stage a version of Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning animated film about a girl drawn into a magical world ruled by spirits.

Dynacare workers provide essential services that must be maintained during strike, labour board rules

The Manitoba Labour Board has ruled Dynacare workers are essential employees and their services must be maintained during a labour dispute.

Clock ticks down on destruction of records documenting residential school abuses

In less than a year, a private company is set to destroy the largest cache of records detailing the widespread abuse of Indigenous children at residential schools in Canada.

The destruction, which was ordered by an Ontario court in 2014 and later upheld by the Supreme Court, is set to take place on Sept. 19, 2027.

This countdown is igniting emotional conversations that seek to balance the immense historical value of the records alongside the confidentiality survivors were promised as part of the process of providing detailed testimony about abuses they’d suffered.

The records were created as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, a class-action settlement stemming from survivors who began suing the federal government in the late 1990s over the harm they’d been subjected to at residential schools.

The idea of Alberta separation viewed through a faith lens shows further fracture lines

CALGARY — One morning in May, John Pentland, a minister at Hillhurst United Church in Calgary, opened his newspaper and read about a group of Albertans who were trying to divide his country.

Something inside of him felt like it cracked open. He started to weep.

“I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t breathe,” he said. He called a friend and told him: “I think I’m losing my mind.”

Pentland has always believed in Canada — flawed as it might be — as a nation gifted with diversity and welcoming of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants. But recently that belief has been shaken as he’s witnessed right-wing ideologies charged with anti-immigrant sentiment take root in his province. It makes him angry and embarrassed for the country he loves.

Kent Monkman debuts beaver sculpture in Toronto’s ambitious new waterfront park

TORONTO - Kent Monkman’s first-ever public art installation is dam good.

The celebrated Cree artist’s new permanent sculpture, dubbed “The Colony,” debuts Wednesday in Toronto’s east end.

The 15-foot-high bronze structure features beavers dancing, feasting and celebrating, evoking Indigenous ceremonies.

It highlights the vital role of beavers in the natural, Indigenous and colonial histories of Turtle Island, says a release.