Police investigating rapper Pop Smoke's killing say robbery looks unlikely as motive -- The 20-year-old was fatally shot Wednesday at a home in the Hollywood Hills. A 911 call from a friend of someone in the house reported armed intruders inside the home, police said.

3 days ago

Ophira Calof is an artist with a disability. Here's how the #CripTheScript initiative is changing Toronto theatre for people like her -- Artists like Ophira Calof are disrupting the traditional construct of theatre space and its typical silent darkness with their 'disabled-ness'.

3 days ago

What do you do when the love of your life fails you? Vivek Shraya turned it into a solo show -- 'How to Fail as a Popstar' is about how the author, visual artist, filmmaker and trans activist failed at what she wanted more than anything: to make it as a pop musician. But she'll always love music, she tells Karen Fricker.

6 days ago

At 'You and I,' it's OK if theatregoers wander onstage during the performance -- The play at Young People's Theatre is for children 12 to 30 months old — or 'explorers,' as playwright Maja Ardal likes to call them.

8 days ago

God, alienation and serial killers: Playwright behind 'Jesus Hopped the "A" Train' shares his thoughts -- Stephen Adly Guirgis, bard of the fringe dwellers, says when it comes to writing others' stories, he's learned 'you better really dig deep.'

10 days ago

Margaret Atwood's 'MaddAddam' books to be translated into dance in National Ballet of Canada's new season -- World premiere of "MADDADDAM" ballet choreographed by Wayne McGregor is set for Nov. 21, 2020.

11 days ago

'Hamilton' in Toronto is still a non-stop jam -- They didn't throw away their shot at Canada — though the context has changed, and one might wish the female characters had more to do, the version that's here has a capable cast, amazing choreography and all those songs, writes Carly Maga.

11 days ago

Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' is fading. New research reveals why -- Since 2012, scientists have been trying to figure out why portions of the painting that were once a brilliant orangish-yellow are now an ivory white.

5 days ago

Toronto's Deanna Bowen, Lozano Lorza among winners of $25K Governor General's art awards -- Canada Council for the Arts reveals eight honourees in visual and media arts

5 days ago

'Giddied' by the thrills of the Falls: Why #TravelingWhileBlack has taken off -- New Parkdale photo exhibit provides a counternarrative to how Black families are typically depicted in media.

6 days ago

Museum's Rembrandt knockoff turns out to be the real thing -- The nearly 400-year-old painting at Pennsylvania's Allentown Art Museum, "Portrait of a Young Woman," had long been attributed to an unknown artist in Rembrandt's workshop.

7 days ago

New Banksy artwork popped up on Valentine's Day. What do you think it means? -- The artwork of a girl firing flowers into the air appeared on the wall of a rented home in Bristol. Now the world is trying to decipher what it means.

10 days ago

Toronto digital exhibit promises 'van Gogh's work in a way you've never seen it before' -- Immersive Van Gogh Exhibition will project Dutch painter's works on the wall of former Toronto Star press room and animate them.

20 days ago

Is intermission dead? Lots of hit musicals and plays are now skipping them - "Come From Away," "The Band's Visit" and the new Broadway revival of "West Side Story" are among recent shows forgoing the traditional break.

9 hours ago

'Jagged Little Pill' the musical offers a whole new generation permission to be angry -- For Carly Maga, both the 1995 Alanis Morissette album and the Broadway musical it spawned are personal — but she's happy to share them with women too young to remember the original songs.

9 hours ago

More than 120 years after the 'Queen of Magic' was catching bullets, women magicians are still scarce -- Women magicians are featured at the Art Gallery of Ontario's 'Illusions: The Art of Magic,' which includes more than 55 promotional posters alongside late 19th- and early 20th-century props, such as one of Harry Houdini's straitjackets.

10 hours ago

Justin Bieber grabs his seventh No. 1 album with 'Changes' -- Canadian pop superstar outpaces rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and rock band Tame Impala.

10 hours ago

Black Keys, New Order, Kraftwerk and more announce Toronto shows -- Plus: a four-night stand by the Hold Steady, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings, and more.

11 hours ago

'Love Is Blind' upends the dating show. Its creator explains its wildest choices -- The series begins with 15 single men and 15 single women splitting off into pairs and getting to know each other, one on one, sight unseen.

12 hours ago

'Schitt's Creek' claims ensemble prize at Toronto ACTRA Awards while individual acting awards go to 'Anne With an E' co-stars

1 day ago

Nine things to do in Toronto this week -- Watch docs about the Colten Boushie case or the NHL's first Black player; revisit 'The Runner' onstage or welcome the Beaches home.

1 day ago

At Toronto Symphony's relaxed performance the kids' attention spans do the judging -- The children at Roy Thomson Hall loved the film music and gave Eugene Ye's cello concerto some attention. But by the time 'The Composer Is Dead' was revealed they were ready to move on to more pressing concerns, like lunch, writes John Terauds.

1 day ago

'Lady Sunrise' offers moving portraits of isolation and psychological struggle -- While the play is full of loss, the meta-story behind it is that of empowerment: nearly all the lead creatives and the entire cast are Asian-Canadian women, writes Karen Fricker.

2 days ago

The end is coming for Kim on 'Better Call Saul' and Rhea Seehorn is good with that

2 days ago

'Friends' reunion special slated for HBO Max -- Sources caution that a deal is far from done and agreements with cast and creatives still need to be hammered out.

2 days ago

Celebrities are talking more about their own mental health and it's helping — even if it's complicated -- Demi Lovato, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are among those who have opened up about their struggles.

3 days ago

12-step cured him, music kept him going: James Taylor looks back as his 19th album comes out -- Ahead of a tour that brings him to Toronto April 27, Taylor talks about opioid addiction, songwriting, environmental catastrophe and why Canada is better at governing than the U.S.

3 days ago

Vinay Menon: Film critic Donald Trump reaches into his racist, rat-chewed box of Froot Loops to mock 'Parasite' and Brad Pitt -- Trump didn't get the global hoopla over 'Parasite,' the winner of the Best Film Oscar, because he is a parasite on democracy, writes Vinay Menon.

3 days ago

The new 'High Fidelity' and the state of the music geek in the digital age -- Modernizing the gender-flipped adaptation of Nick Hornby's 1995 novel meant reflecting the ways being a music geek has been changed by technology in a generation.

3 days ago

Harrison Ford aimed to bring new depth to classic character in 'The Call of the Wild' -- In the new movie adaptation of Jack London's 1903 novel, Ford plays John Thornton, an adventurer who forms a life-changing bond with Buck the dog after saving him from abusive owners.

3 days ago

Success of 'To All the Boys' puts stars on Hollywood's radar -- The 2018 release of the Netflix teen rom-com changed the lives of its stars, Lana Condor and Noah Centineo.

3 days ago

'Corpus Christi,' now on at TIFF Bell Lightbox, addresses big issues of conscience and morality

3 days ago

Toronto HIV hospital pulls 'Friends' edit after copyright claim from Warner Bros. -- As part of its sitcom-inspired #SmashStigma campaign, Casey House had released two edited episodes of "Friends" and "The Office" featuring new plotlines that revolve around HIV.

3 days ago

'Steven Universe' series finale coming soon -- The final 10 episodes of "Steven Universe Future," the animated limited series centred on a half-human, half-magical alien being, are set to air in March.

3 days ago

How do you solve a problem like 'Emma'? Star, director put their own spin on Jane Austen heroine -- Other movie versions of the character emphasized her charms. This time she doesn't care about pleasing her audience.

3 days ago

'I liked the idea of playing somebody good': Edie Falco takes on a female chief of police in 'Tommy' -- After a career spent playing morally conflicted women, Edie Falco was keen to embody a character on the right side of the law in 'Tommy.'

17 days ago

'American Factory' director on her film, chemo and a gruelling road to her Oscars win -- Sunday's Oscar win for "American Factory" capped a whirlwind 13 months for the documentary, fulfilling a journey that took co-directors Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar from a cancer ward to the Academy Awards.

13 days ago

When a bleary-eyed Quentin Tarantino rambled in Toronto about — you guessed it — violence -- Leading up to The Oscars, we look back at the Star's first interviews with some of this years nominees. This is our story from 1992 with Quentin Tarantino.

18 days ago

John Mulaney delays Toronto show to host 'Saturday Night Live' — and offers apology from Lorne Michaels -- Popular comedian moves T.O. show for the third time.

17 days ago

Desmond Cole's publisher rushes to fix omission of 'black' from book jackets -- The publisher tweeted last Friday that it's replacing jackets of the activist and journalist's debut book to include the correct subtitle: "A Year of Black Resistance and Power."

18 days ago

For Mandy Moore, 'This Is Us' helped push her to make new music and tour again -- The actress and singer talks about what lured her back into the music business and her forthcoming seventh album "Silver Linings," her first since 2009.

3 days ago

Cellist Jacqueline du Pré remains an enigma despite new opera telling her story -- The performers are excellent, but the material doesn't live up to their exalted standard in Tapestry Opera's world premiere of 'Jacqueline,' writes John Terauds.

4 days ago

Rapper Pop Smoke reportedly shot and killed at 20 -- TMZ reported that the rising hip-hop artist was fatally shot in Hollywood Hills, Calif., early Wednesday after two men broke into a home where he was inside.

5 days ago

'Fresh Off the Boat' leaving indelible mark on TV landscape -- Randall Park, who portrays patriarch Louis, never even thought the pilot — inspired by restaurateur and TV personality Eddie Huang's childhood memoir — would be picked up.

4 days ago

Inside the making of 'McMillions,' the story of how a small circle of scammers swindled McDonald's -- The six-part documentary uses re-creations, archival footage and contemporary interviews to tell the story of how a former cop defrauded the company of more than $31 million by stealing the biggest winning tickets in McDonald's Monopoly Game.

5 days ago

'Friends' is the gift that keeps on giving to WarnerMedia -- Whether "Friends" can replicate its status as a streaming phenomenon on Netflix, where young fans became obsessed with it, remains to be seen. But the show's track record for regenerating its success is one for the TV history books.

5 days ago

Al Pacino lured back to the small screen as a Nazi stalker in 'Hunters' -- Pacino plays Meyer Offerman, a wealthy Holocaust survivor who leads a band of multicultural, multi-talented assassins in Amazon series debuting Feb. 21.

5 days ago

Catherine Reitman says there's a 'real hunger' for shows like 'Workin' Moms' -- When Reitman debuted "Workin' Moms" in 2017, she thought it would be "one and done" after the first season.

7 days ago

Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville turn 'Ordinary Love' into something quietly extraordinary

4 days ago

Call of the Wild remake feels sloppy, like a big dog, but at least it has heart

4 days ago

Bong Joon-ho happy 'Parasite' succeeded despite disparity it showed - Bong's dark comic thriller about two families on the opposite ends of South Korea's social spectrum won best picture at this month's 92nd Academy Awards ceremony, becoming the first non-English-language film to get the top honour.

2 days ago

Director who went from 'Kitty Galore' to Dwayne Johnson blockbusters gets CFC Award for Creative Excellence

10 days ago

The 'French Oscars' are embroiled in a Roman Polanski controversy -- The director and admitted rapist's latest film earned 12 nominations at the 2020 Cesar Awards, resulting in backlash, calls for boycott and, now, the resignation of the entire 21-person board of the Cesar Academy.

10 days ago

Tupac is alive — and living with the Navajo, new film will argue -- The alternative reality explored in the film by Las Vegas-based filmmaker Rick Boss posits that the rapper was not fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting in 1996.

10 days ago

Get deep into trouble with these new crime fiction thrillers -- New from Walter Mosley, Greg Hurwitz, and a 'satisfying, persuasive' new voice from Denmark

3 days ago

Do these two new books — Jenny Offill's "Weather" and Megan Angelo's "Followers" — deserve their rapturous reviews? The Reader spills -- Are this week's most talked-about books worth your reading time and money?

10 days ago

Tarryn Fisher's The Wives and Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey: which one is "a big disappointment?" -- They're creating a lot of buzz — but are the books everyone's talking about (and buying) worth your reading time and money?

25 days ago

Crime fiction that'll have you rediscovering past thrills -- Ian Rankin's old-new novel, Ian Hamilton's new take on an old favourite, Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., and a stand-alone dark tale of suspense

1 month ago

'Jaw-dropping' Royal insider memoir exposes life 'in the shadow of the Crown' -- Lady-in-waiting Anne Glenconner, childhood friend of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, gives a rare glimpse behind the curtain into the "royals set"

1 month ago

Works from Canadian poets feature odes to everything from Nova Scotia to 1980s nerd culture -- This is what is coming from Moez Surani, Tammy Armstrong, Nathan Dueck and Julie Hartley

1 month ago

Fascinating story of a bricklaying robot

1 month ago