Q&A - The Greatest Showman

Great Big Sea's Bob Hallett was already a Canadian rock icon. With his purchase of the Regent Theatre on Mount Pleasant, he becomes Toronto's newest impresario

- COURTNEY SHEA

What is a son of Newfoundland doing buying a theatre in Toronto?

This all started in 2018, when Walter Schroeder a Canadian philanthropist who loves supporting Newfoundland artists and I formed our theatre company, Terra Bruce. My band Great Big Sea hadn't been active for a few years, so my plan was to run the company in St. John's since there's so much talent there. But we realized early on that, to do the kinds of shows we wanted to do, we needed a presence in Toronto. So we bought the Regent in early 2022.

Toronto has a lot of beautiful old theatres. Why the Regent?

That was just fortuity. In recent years, the Regent had become a down-at-the-heels venue. Covid crushed any shot at business, so the owners were ready to sell. It's a perfect mid-size theatre, which is rare in Canada these days-venues are either big 2,000-seaters or little boxes. The bones of the building are so beautiful. And it will be a short walk from the subway once the Crosstown is done.

A finished transit project? You're clearly not from Toronto.

Well, theatre is fuelled by optimism, and we have some time until the Regent is ready anyhow.

Given the past few years, why are you so optimistic about live theatre?