Mirvish Productions to Dim the Marquee Lights of its Theatres in Honour of Sir Tom Stoppard

To honour the life and work of playwright Tom Stoppard, who died at the age of 88 on November 29, 2025, Mirvish Productions will dim the marquee lights of all four of its theatres in Toronto on Thursday, December 4, at the traditional curtain time of 8 PM. The lights will be dimmed for six minutes, to mark the number of decades that Stoppard wrote.

Stoppard, considered one of the greatest playwrights in world theatre, has had four of his plays produced at Mirvish theatres, the majority at the Royal Alexandra.

His first play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966) played at the Royal Alex in 1969. It was remounted in 2024 at the CAA Theatre, directed by Jeremy Webb and starring Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan.
Another early play, The Real Inspector Hound (1968) played the Royal Alex in a production starring Robert Vaughan in 1974.

The Real Thing (1982) was directed by Guy Sprung at the Royal Alex in 1985. It starred Richard Donat, Stuart Hughes, Bridget O’Sullivan, Albert Schultz,  Sherry Smith, R.H. Thomson and Kate Trotter.

Arcadia (1993) was also presented at the Royal Alex in 2014. This Shaw Festival production was directed by Eda Holmes and starred Michael Ball, Andrew Bunker, Diana Donnelly, Martin Happer, Damon McLeod, Patrick McManus, Gray Powell, Ric Reid, Harveen Sandhu, Sanjay Talwar and Nicole Underhay.

In January 2022, Stoppard’s final and most personal play, Leopoldstadt (2020), was set to have its North American premiere at the Princess of Wales Theatre. The original cast of the play’s world premiere in London’s West End was reunited for it and was in rehearsals when the Omicron variant struck in late December 2021 and all theatres were closed.

Born in Czechoslovakia and raised in Britain, Stoppard’s career spanned six decades. He began as a theatre critic in Bristol and London, before writing for the theatre, radio, TV and film. He won three Olivier awards, five Tony awards and an Oscar (for his screenplay for Shakespeare in Love). He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1997 and awarded the Order of Merit in 2000.

“Tom Stoppard’s work was unique and dazzling,” said David Mirvish. “In his plays he combined a vast curiosity about the world and its people with a passion for diverse subjects, resulting in works dramatic, comedic, philosophical and always surprising. 
"In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead it was his passion for the existential philosophy that had come to dominate after the chaos and destruction of WWII. In Jumpers it was philosophical abstractions, radical tympanists and moon travel. In Travesties, he imagined what would happen when Lenin, James Joyce and Tristan Tzara spent a year together in Zurich during WWI and were somehow involved in a production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

"No one else in world theatre could equal his zest for life in all its complexities and his delight in all things theatrical. We have lost one of the giants.”

Thursday December 4 is the appropriate day to dim the marquee lights because all four Mirvish venues will be operational.  

At the Royal Alex, & Juliet will have its second performance in a new all-Canadian production. At the Princess of Wales, The Sound of Music continues its sell-out run. At the CAA Ed Mirvish, We Will Rock You will have its seventh performance. And at the CAA, the original London production of the The Woman in Black will begin a five-week run.