In every major city, there exists a complex exchange between urban space and the institution of the theatre. City Stages is an interdisciplinary and materialist analysis of this relationship as it has existed in Toronto since 1967. Locating theatre companies - their sites and practices - in Toronto's urban environment, Michael McKinnie focuses on the ways in which the theatre has adapted to changes in civic ideology, environment, and economy.

Over the past four decades, theatre in Toronto has been increasingly implicated in the civic self-fashioning of the city and...