BYGONE THEATRE'S THE BRIDGE

In August of 2023, Bygone Theatre, a registered charity, moved into 379 Adelaide St. W., 4th floor, along with our space partners UKAI Projects and Vodkow.

Since then, the space known as The Bridge has taken on several forms, while we worked to find what the community wanted, needed, and could afford.

The result? The most affordable rehearsal space in the city. $10/hr rehearsal space was created with the core belief that you can't call something "affordable" when it costs more an hour than those who need it earn hourly. That's why we knew we needed something that cost less hourly than minimum wage. And it's been wildly popular.

It's no secret there is very little money in the arts, and many projects take years of planning, fundraising, and sometimes still don't get off the ground. We realized that the need for affordable space existed now, and so we set about trying to make that happen. We didn't manage to raise the money in advance, we just jumped in with both feet, some dedicated volunteers, and decided to make the best of what we had in the moment.

It's been stressful, exhausting, expensive, but ultimately worth it. But now, it's all being taken away.

The morning of September 18, 2025, our landlords informed us that they were terminating our lease. We have until the end of December to get out.

They claimed we were in default in some aspects (which we 100% disagree with - I am a paralegal and Conor, our board chair is a lawyer, so this isn't just a case of us not "understanding" a contract, we think this is meant to be an intimidation tactic, they pointed out that it would "cost a lot of money" if we tried to fight that), and ultimately, whether we are or not, corporate leases highly favour the landlords, and legally they are allowed to give us only 3 months notice. When I tried to explain the programs and things we had coming up, and how negatively it would affect the community, I was given a look of absolute disgust and told "you are paying very little money", and looked at like I was insane for even  suggesting what they were doing was unfair.

WHAT WILL BE LOST

We don't think there is any chance of staying here any longer. And honestly, we've had a lot of other issues with Allied, and we don't really want to deal with them. Our lease was supposed to end August 2026 and we were making plans to find somewhere else afterwards. But those 8 months being lost means losing

• 5 indie productions
• $10/hr rehearsal space
• a space for our one-of-a-kind immersive theatre training program we just launched
• 2+ high school co-ops
• private studios for 5 artists
• affordable performance space
• free weekly drop-ins
• office space for 2 companies in residence
• office space for Bygone, and our Bygone Theatre Presents companies
• storage space for our set/props which are often loaned out for free to other indie companies

All with virtually no time or resources to figure out alternatives. Remember, this is no one's full time job. We have no operating funding, no permanent staff, and usually these sort of changes take months if not years of planning, negotiating and funding.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Show that this is needed. Take a moment to sign your name and say that Toronto needs truly affordable rehearsal and performance space. Something that is accessible, artist-focused, multi-disciplinary and costs $10/hr. Yes we know that is far belong market value. But you know what happens when you don't support a communities' artists? They leave. Or they stop creating art. And a city without art is not vibrant, is not engaging, is not the type of place anyone wants to live, whether they realize it or not. 

If you have used The Bridge in the past few years, tell us what it has meant to you. Share how it helped. Give us something to take to funders, and city officials, as we make one last-ditch effort to keep operations going without having to cancel more than half our season. 

We'll keep you updated.
Thanks for all you've done so far.

Emily Dix
Bygone Theatre Artistic Executive Director