Out of Town
Sitting Down with Ghosts: The Division at Crow’s Theatre Examines the Stories We Choose to Carry
It’s the most compelling question of the evening, when someone asks whether you would love a family member differently after discovering an unbearable truth about them. The idea unwinds our senses, and the room changes temperature inside Andrew Kushnir’s The Division. I could feel that superbly constructed question settling heavily over the audience long before it was spoken out loud directly. It hovered inside every dated slide, every story passed down through generations, and every hesitant recollection about a grandfather remembered by his family as both a survivor and a mystery. Produced by Project: Humanity and Pyretic Productions in association with Crow’s Theatre, this deeply personal and intellectually probing docu-drama transforms one man’s personal search into a larger examination of Ukrainian family history, world conflict, inherited mythology, patriotism, guilt, and the dangerous instability of historical memory.
Directed by Kushnir (Stratford’s Casey and Diana) himself, the production unfolds inside a long hallway-like playing space that immediately evokes both transit and entrapment. The production’s visual language, shaped through the set and costume design of Sim Suzer and Niloufar Ziaee, reinforces the feeling of a documentary excavation unfolding in real time, while Christian Horoszczak’s lighting and Thomas Ryder Payne’s carefully textured sound design help guide the audience through the play’s shifting emotional and political landscapes. The layout occasionally feels awkward in its staging mechanics, with actors navigating a somewhat clumsy physical structure that mirrors the unevenness within the writing itself. Yet that roughness also gives the evening a searching, unsettled energy that ultimately suits the material.
Daniel Maslany and Karl Ang in The Division at Crow’s Theatre. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
From the opening moments, when Daniel Maslany’s version of Kushnir begins recording a letter to his future nephew, the production gently and almost too compassionately establishes its central tension between hope and dread. “It’s not that original,” he says modestly, introducing a deeply intimate framing device while discussing the ongoing war in Ukraine and imagining a future where the violence might finally be over. The gesture feels vulnerable, uncertain, and slightly over-constructed all at once, much like the play itself. That uncertainty becomes the driving force behind The Division.
After publishing a eulogy for his late grandfather, a renowned watchmaker, Kushnir is confronted online with accusations tied to his grandfather’s military service in the First Ukrainian Division during the Second World War. The discovery launches him on a sprawling investigation across Ukraine and Europe, forcing him to dig in and confront some pretty disturbing historical ambiguities surrounding nationalism, collaboration, survival, and complicity. It turns out, at seventeen years old, his grandfather swore an oath to Hitler while wearing a German uniform to receive a gun to continue to fight against their historical enemy, Russia. The play repeatedly returns to the impossible question buried within that fact: did he believe in what he was saying, or was survival the only ideology available to him?
Daniel Maslany, Alon Nashman, and Karl Ang in The Division at Crow’s Theatre. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Kushnir’s writing is at its strongest when it allows these contradictions to remain unresolved. The play understands that history is rarely clean, particularly for displaced communities shaped by war, migration, and political trauma. One of its most compelling observations is the idea that modern Ukraine, especially during an ongoing war with Russia, is often expected to present itself to the world as morally pristine in order to maintain international sympathy and support. Yet history refuses to cooperate with those simplified narratives. Kushnir repeatedly encounters resistance from people urging him not to dig too deeply into the past, warning him that some stories are too dangerous, too politically inconvenient, or too emotionally destabilizing to fully excavate. The production wisely understands how patriotism and myth-making often depend upon selective remembering, and Kushnir never seems willing to shy away from those difficult conversations, regardless of the threats lobbed his way.
Maslany (Knifefight’s Invasion: Christmas Carol) delivers a deeply thoughtful and emotionally grounded performance as Kushnir, carefully guiding the audience through the increasingly tangled and crater-filled emotional terrain. He expertly captures the playwright’s curiosity, anxiety, humour, and vulnerability with a restrained sensitivity that keeps the evening from collapsing beneath the weight of its own ideas. Around him, the ensemble shifts fluidly through multiple roles and perspectives. Ivy Charles, Karl Ang, Mariya Khomutova, and Alan Nashman all bring clarity and texture to the constantly evolving structure, helping guide the audience through rapid transitions in geography, time, political context, and well-delivered accents. Their work keeps the production energized even during moments when the script risks becoming overloaded with information.
Mariya Khomutova and the cast of The Division at Crow’s Theatre. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Despite its heavy themes, The Division is often surprisingly funny. Kushnir uses humour strategically throughout the piece, particularly in sequences satirizing the 2023 Hunka scandal and in the wonderfully theatrical depiction of Vladimir Putin. These moments of absurdity provide necessary release while also emphasizing how surreal political discourse surrounding war, nationalism, and public image has become. The comedy never undermines the seriousness of the material. Instead, it exposes how fragile and performative many of these narratives truly are.
The production is particularly compelling when examining the complicated emotional inheritance carried by Ukrainian Canadians. Kushnir articulates how Ukrainians are often described as either resilient heroes or corrupt opportunists, depending entirely on who is controlling the narrative and for what political purpose. That observation cuts directly into the heart of the play’s investigation. The search for historical truth here is not simply academic. It threatens to destabilize identity itself. Kushnir is not only questioning who his grandfather was. He is questioning the stories his family told themselves in order to survive emotionally, culturally, and politically.
Daniel Maslany and Ivy Charles in The Division at Crow’s Theatre. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
The recurring symbol of the inherited watch attempts to anchor those ideas emotionally, though this is where the production struggles most noticeably. The repeated images of different hands holding the watch and the insistence upon its symbolic importance never fully develop beyond Kushnir’s personal attachment into something theatrically resonant. We understand intellectually why the object matters to the playwright, but the writing never quite transforms it into a stronger metaphor about time, inheritance, or memory with enough emotional force. A similar issue arises in the play’s final framing involving the birth of a child, which introduces a sentimental circularity that simplifies some of the richer ambiguities the production has worked so carefully to explore. The conclusion attempts to reach for emotional closure, yet the delivery slightly softens the sharper and more unsettling questions raised earlier in the evening.
The Division is not perfect in this timely manner, yet it succeeds because it is willing to remain uncomfortable. Kushnir does not offer easy moral resolutions, nor does he fully condemn or absolve the grandfather whose legacy he is trying to understand. The play recognizes that love and disappointment can coexist painfully within the same emotional space, particularly inside families shaped by silence, migration, survival, and inherited fear. That complexity gives the production its emotional and intellectual weight.
A quote from Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina appears in the program: “We break the spell not when we banish the ghosts, but when we invite them to breakfast.” Sitting with that ideal near the end of The Division, I kept thinking about that invitation and about how terrifying it can be to truly sit beside the ghosts that built us. Kushnir’s play understands that confronting history does not necessarily heal us or provide certainty. Sometimes it simply forces us to look more honestly at the people we love and ask whether our understanding of them can survive the truth. The answer offered here is neither simple nor comforting, but it feels deeply human in its refusal to turn away.
Daniel Maslany in The Division at Crow’s Theatre. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
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Some Broadway friendships end when the final curtain comes down. Others apparently turn into a rock-and-roll band.
Michael Longoria
The Midtown Men brought their irresistible combination of Broadway polish, four-part harmony and pure 1960s swagger to Eisenhower Park’s Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre, proving once again that Jersey Boys may have introduced these four men to one another, but it certainly wasn’t the end of their story.
Christian Hoff
Tony Award winner Christian Hoff, Michael Longoria, Daniel Reichard and Tony Award nominee J. Robert Spencer first shared a stage as members of the original Broadway company of Jersey Boys, the musical phenomenon that turned the story and songs of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons into one of Broadway’s biggest hits.
Daniel Reichard
They spent more than a thousand performances together before doing something rather unusual: instead of simply moving on to their next individual Broadway jobs, they took the chemistry they had developed eight shows a week and created something of their own.
J. Robert Spencer
The result was The Midtown Men.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
And while their pedigree is unmistakably Broadway, this isn’t Jersey Boys on tour. The Midtown Men became their own musical act, expanding beyond The Four Seasons to embrace the glorious pop landscape of the 1960s—The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Motown, The Rascals, The Mamas & the Papas, The Ronettes and more. Their official repertoire has long celebrated the decade that gave America some of its most enduring pop music, with four singers who know exactly how to sell both a harmony and a story.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
What makes the group work isn’t simply nostalgia. Plenty of acts can recreate the music of the ’60s. The Midtown Men have something considerably harder to manufacture: history with one another.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
They learned how to listen to one another on a Broadway stage. They know where the other voices are going, when to step forward, when to pull back and how to turn four leading men into one sound. Reichard has recalled that while they were still performing Jersey Boys, the four would gather in dressing rooms between shows and work out harmonies to other songs they loved from the decade. In other words, The Midtown Men were quietly being born backstage while another show was happening out front.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
That musical shorthand followed them to Eisenhower Park.
Christian Hoff
Christian Hoff
Christian Hoff
Hoff brings the confidence that won him the Tony Award for his portrayal of Tommy DeVito. Reichard, Broadway’s original Bob Gaudio, possesses the musical-theatre storyteller’s instinct for finding the character inside a song. Spencer, the original Nick Massi and later a Tony nominee for Next to Normal, supplies formidable Broadway chops, while Longoria—who originated Joe Pesci before succeeding John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli—knows a thing or two about sending a voice soaring above a crowd.
Michael Longoria
Michael Longoria
Michael Longoria
Together, however, they stop being four Broadway résumés and become a genuine group.
J. Robert Spencer
J. Robert Spencer
J. Robert Spencer
There is something wonderfully circular about what happened to these men. They began as actors playing a band, only to discover along the way that they actually were one. What started under Broadway lights developed into years of concerts across the country, recordings and even a nationally televised concert special.
Daniel Reichard
Daniel Reichard
Daniel Reichard
The Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre is precisely the sort of setting where this music feels at home. These songs weren’t created to sit politely behind glass as artifacts of another era. They were made for summer nights, for dancing, singing along and suddenly realizing that you remember every word to a song you haven’t consciously thought about in twenty years.
Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard
That’s the pleasure of The Midtown Men. They don’t treat the 1960s as a museum exhibition. They remind you why this music became permanent in the first place.
Christian Hoff, Michael Longoria
The Beatles gave us exuberance. Motown gave popular music sophistication and irresistible rhythm. The Beach Boys made adolescent longing sound like California sunshine. The Four Seasons gave us those impossible harmonies and that unmistakable falsetto.
Daniel Reichard
J. Robert Spencer
Daniel Reichard, J. Robert Spencer,
Michael Longoria
Christian Hoff
Four Broadway actors fell in love with all of it. Nearly two decades after first coming together, Hoff, Longoria, Reichard and Spencer are still standing beside one another, still singing, still touring and still having what appears to be a ridiculously good time doing it.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
Not bad for four guys who were originally hired to pretend to be a band. Turns out they were just getting started.
The curtain may come down, a production may close, and a performance may disappear into theatrical memory, but the cast album is where musical theatre gets its second life. This summer and fall, an unusually rich group of recordings is arriving across streaming platforms, CDs and increasingly coveted vinyl editions, preserving everything from intimate new musicals and Off-Broadway discoveries to major Broadway revivals, conceptual works and a Cats recording unlike any Andrew Lloyd Webber has made before.
Already available is Alone, a new concept album featuring music and lyrics by John Ertman and Joseph Mathusek and an impressive company that includes Taylor Iman Jones, Linedy Genao, Zachary Noah Piser, Adi Roy, Rachel Webb, Kim Onah, Michael Nigro, Nathan Levy, Claire Kwon, Cassidy Sledge, Ellis Gage, Andy Harman and Gray Watson. Released digitally August 7 by Picardee Records, the album introduces its musical world without waiting for a full production to arrive—a reminder that increasingly, new musicals are finding audiences through headphones before they ever find a theatre.
Also newly released is Sappho: The Poetess, a London EP written and performed by Hayley Canham. The August 12 Center Stage Records release gives the ancient Greek poet a contemporary musical voice, joining the continuing wave of theatre composers rediscovering women whose lives have survived history largely through fragments, mythology and the interpretations of others.
August 14 brought two dramatically different recordings. Good Guy With A Gun!, a concept album by Philip Labes and Micah O’Konis, arrives with one of the most eclectic casts of the season, including Chris Sullivan, Kimiko Glenn, Anthony Rapp, Yvette Nicole Brown, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Jason Alexander, Richard Kind, Kristen Schaal and Paul Walter Hauser. Even before a full stage production, that roster alone gives the project considerable curiosity value.
The same day, Center Stage Records and Yellow Sound Label released Empire: Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording, preserving Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull’s musical about the creation of the Empire State Building. Directed Off-Broadway in 2024 by Tony winner Cady Huffman, Empire looks at the audacity required to build upward during one of the most precarious moments in American history. Its characters include industrialists, immigrants and Mohawk ironworkers, turning the construction of a skyscraper into a story about ambition, labor and New York’s almost pathological refusal to believe something cannot be done.
The recording features Danny Iktomi Bevins, Devin Cortez, Morgan Cowling, Kaitlyn Davidson, Joel Douglas, Alexandra Frohlinger, Albert Guerzon, Kiana Kabeary, Howard Kaye, April Ortiz, Jessica Ranville, Paul Salvatoriello, J Savage, Robbie Serrano and Ethan Saviet, with an ensemble including Joseph Fierberg, Kennedy Perez, Matt Gibson, Julia Louise Hosack and TJ Newton. For a musical whose central character is essentially New York itself, the album gives Empire a chance to continue climbing long after its Off-Broadway run.
Then comes one of the most intriguing releases of August. Night Side Songs, Daniel and Patrick Lazour’s deeply human musical produced by Lincoln Center Theater at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater earlier this year, arrives digitally and on streaming platforms August 21 through Octoverse Media and Warner Music Group’s Arts Music. The first single, “My Stuff,” is already available, with CD and vinyl editions planned later in the year.
Night Side Songs occupied an unusually delicate place in the theatrical landscape when it played LCT3 from February 14 through March 29. Rather than treating illness, caregiving and mortality as dramatic devices, the Lazours created a folk-inflected musical concerned with the conversations that happen around bedsides, the things people say and cannot say, the jokes that break unbearable tension and the strange community that forms around someone whose life has suddenly changed. The recording features the original Lincoln Center Theater company of Robin de Jesús, Brooke Ishibashi, Jonathan Raviv, Kris Saint-Louis and Mary Testa, joined in the studio by an audience that sings along in keeping with the score’s communal folk tradition.
The album is produced by Mara Isaacs, Todd Sickafoose and Andy Einhorn, with Daniel and Patrick Lazour co-producing. The stage production earned nominations from the Drama Desk, Drama League and Lucille Lortel Awards, including recognition for its music, ensemble and production. The album should allow one of the season’s quieter musicals to find the larger audience intimate work sometimes struggles to reach during a limited theatrical run.
Also arriving August 21 is Schmigadoon! (Original Broadway Cast Recording), with music and lyrics by Cinco Paul. The Joy Machine Records release features Alex Brightman, Sara Chase, Ana Gasteyer, Ann Harada, Brad Oscar, Isabelle McCalla, Ivan Hernandez, Maulik Pancholy, Max Clayton, McKenzie Kurtz and Ayaan Diop. What began as a television series lovingly skewering—and embracing—the conventions of classic musical theatre has now completed the circle by becoming a Broadway musical with its own cast recording. There is something wonderfully appropriate about a show born from affection for cast albums becoming one itself.
On August 28, Evita gets another major recording, this time preserving Jamie Lloyd’s London production starring Rachel Zegler, alongside Diego Andres Rodriguez, James Olivas, Aaron Lee Lambert and Bella Brown. The full album will be released digitally and as a triple-vinyl edition through The Other Songs. With Zegler bringing her acclaimed Eva Perón to Broadway in 2027, the recording arrives as both documentation of the London production and something of a preview for New York audiences. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s score has been recorded many times, but Evita has always been unusually dependent upon the personality of the performer standing at its center. Zegler now gets her own place in that lineage.
August 28 also brings Sara Bareilles’ Good Grief through Epic Records on CD, digital and vinyl. Bareilles long ago crossed the line between pop songwriter and major theatrical voice with Waitress, and anything she releases now carries interest for both audiences. Her music has always lived comfortably in the space between confessional singer-songwriter intimacy and theatrical storytelling, making a new Bareilles album part of the broader musical-theatre conversation whether or not every song is headed for a stage.
September 4 brings the physical release Broadway collectors have been waiting for: the 2025 Broadway cast recording of Chess on CD and vinyl from Ghostlight Records, following its April digital release. The album preserves Nicholas Christopher, Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit, Hannah Cruz, Bradley Dean, Sean Allan Krill and Bryce Pinkham in Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice’s gloriously oversized Cold War musical. Whatever one thinks of Chessdramatically, that score remains one of musical theatre’s great guilty-not-guilty pleasures, and this cast gives it formidable vocal ammunition.
On September 18, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody enters the recording studio canon with a digital and triple-vinyl release from Center Stage Records. Dylan MarcAurele’s score is performed by Jay Armstrong Johnson, Jimin Moon, Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres, Ryan Duncan, Shelby Acosta and Daniel Brackett. The fact that a knowingly outrageous Off-Broadway parody is getting a triple-vinyl edition tells you almost everything you need to know about the current cast-album market: audiences increasingly want theatre not simply as something they attended, but as something they can collect.
September 25 brings another kind of theatrical souvenir with Rise Up! Hamilton: The Anthology, arriving from Atlantic/Rhino on CD, digital and vinyl. More than a decade after Hamilton permanently altered the commercial expectations for Broadway cast recordings, the musical remains one of the rare modern theatre properties capable of generating the kind of ancillary releases normally associated with major recording artists.
And then there is CATS: The Jellicle Ball.
Atlantic Records has opened pre-orders for the forthcoming Original Broadway Cast Recording of the Tony-winning revival, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alana da Fonseca. No firm release date has yet been announced, but this is arguably the recording collectors will be most curious to hear because The Jellicle Ball did something almost unimaginable: it made Cats culturally dangerous again.
The Broadway production reimagined Lloyd Webber’s musical through New York ballroom culture, transforming the Jellicle competition into a glittering collision of fashion, dance, queer history and theatrical spectacle. The company includes André De Shields, Ken Ard, Kya Azeen, Bryson Battle, Jonathan Burke, Baby Byrne, Tara Lashan Clinkscales, Bryce Farris, Elisa Galindez, Sydney James Harcourt, Dava Huesca, Dudney Joseph Jr., Junior LaBeija, Leiomy, Robert “Silk” Mason, Ernest Mingo, Tempress Chasity Moore, Primo Thee Ballerino, Xavier Reyes, Nora Schell, Bebe Nicole Simpson, Emma Sofia, Phumzile Sojola, Kendall Grayson Stroud, B Noel Thomas, Kalyn West, Garnet Williams, Teddy Wilson Jr., Darius Wright and Donté Nadir Wilder.
The production earned nine Tony nominations and won three, including Best Direction of a Musical, Best Choreography and Best Costume Design. Qween Jean’s costume win also marked a Broadway milestone as the first openly trans woman to win a Tony Award. The recording now has the unusual task of capturing a production whose impact was profoundly visual and physical—ballroom movement, fashion, attitude and audience energy—through sound alone.
Several other recordings remain on the horizon without firm release dates. Joy Machine Records will release Beau The Musical, with music by Ethan D. Pakchar and Douglas Lyons and lyrics by Lyons, featuring Matt Rodin, Jeb Brown, Max Sangerman, Miyuki Miyagi, Andrea Goss, Amelia Cormack, Ryan Halsaver and Derek Stoltenberg.
Ghostlight Records is also preparing a London concept album of Death Note, The Musical, with Frank Wildhorn’s music and Jack Murphy’s lyrics performed by a company including Adam Pascal, Joaquin Pedro Valdes, Dean John Wilson, Aimie Atkinson, Frances Mayli McCann, Rachel Clare Chan and Christian Ray Marbella. Wildhorn and Death Notehave long seemed destined for one another—large emotions, operatic stakes and characters who consider moderation an unacceptable personality trait.
JAY Records has two particularly traditional theatre recordings waiting in the wings. A new studio cast recording of The Fantasticks features Brad Oscar, Telly Leung, Elizabeth Teeter, Lewis Cleale and Ron Raines, arriving just as the famously long-running Off-Broadway musical prepares, astonishingly, for its first Broadway production. The label will also release Lovesong, Michael Valenti’s setting of lyrics by Dorothy Parker and Sir Walter Raleigh, performed by Jenn Gambatese, Lauren Molina, Matt Bogart and Jeff Kready.
Also forthcoming is the studio EP Salem, with music and lyrics by Amanda Ribnick and Jennifer Lucy Cook and performances by Bryce Pinkham, Kuhoo Verma, John-Andrew Morrison, Gabi Carrubba, Lizzy Murray and Katherine Lynn-Rose, while PS Classics will release Ricky Ian Gordon’s Sycamore Trees, featuring a mouthwatering company of Farah Alvin, Marc Kudisch, Judy Kuhn, Jessica Molaskey, Matthew Risch, Diane Sutherland and Tony Yazbeck.
What makes this particular stretch of releases interesting is how thoroughly the cast album has escaped its old definition. Once, the recording primarily existed to preserve the score of a Broadway musical. Now we have concept albums creating audiences before productions exist, limited-run Off-Broadway shows finding permanence after closing, London productions introducing themselves to American listeners, parody musicals getting elaborate vinyl editions and established Broadway properties becoming collectible objects in multiple formats.
Streaming should theoretically have made albums less precious. Instead, vinyl has made them objects again.
And musical theatre, perhaps more than almost any other form, understands why that matters. A performance is ephemeral by design. The actor sings the note, the orchestra plays the chord, the audience hears it—and then the moment is gone.
A cast album refuses to let it disappear.
This fall, there will be quite a lot worth keeping.
I have my press pass firmly in hand, a TIFF schedule finally staring back at me, and suddenly September 10 is more alive than ever. After weeks of announcements about films I want to see and with barely enough time to process the expanse of it all, the full schedule for the 51st Toronto International Film Festival has finally gone live. And with it comes that familiar moment when TIFF stops being an idea and becomes a calendar full of decisions. Where will I be at 8 in the morning? How quickly can I get from one screening to another? Which films will become the ones I absolutely have to see? Which discoveries will come completely out of nowhere?
Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine.
The full Official Selection now stands at 293 titles, with 11 more films announced alongside the schedule. There are World Premieres, Canadian Premieres, North American Premieres and an International Premiere spread across Special Presentations, Gala and Centrepiece. Among the new additions are Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard“, Nanni Moretti’s “It Will Happen Tonight“, Guy Nattiv’s “The Liberation“, Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple“, the new Canadian documentary from Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn. There is also “Wild Horse Nine“, Martin McDonagh’s latest, while Cody Fern’s “Closing Night” arrives as a World Premiere. And then there is “Trees are Watching” from Bahman Ghobadi, a World Premiere joining the Centrepiece programme.
That is enough to make the schedule reveal feel like an event all on its own, but TIFF has managed to add another temptation to the day. Alongside the full schedule comes the announcement of this year’s In Conversation With…programming, bringing Lee Min-ho, Rachel Morrison, Chris Rock, Andrew Scott and Hudson Williams to the Festival for live conversations about their careers, creative journeys and craft. I have to admit that I have never actually attended one of these talks. Somehow, amid the constant scramble of screenings, I have always treated them as something happening elsewhere in the Festival. But now I have a press pass, and Andrew Scott is sitting on that list. That might be enough to change my habits.
Simon Stone’s Elsinore.
Scott arrives at TIFF ’26 with “Elsinore“, where he stars as actor Ian Charleson in a story centred on Charleson’s final years and his determination to perform Hamlet at London’s National Theatre while living with AIDS. TIFF notes that Scott has been part of the Festival before, first appearing in 2014 with “Pride” and returning in 2025 with “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” and Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon“. His screen work has travelled through “Fleabag“, “Sherlock“, “All of Us Strangers” and “Ripley“, and this conversation promises an opportunity to hear directly from an actor whose career has moved through wildly different corners of film and television.
Then there is Hudson Williams, whose presence on the schedule feels particularly timely for a Festival audience that watched ‘Heated Rivalry‘ explode into the cultural conversation. Williams will take part in Making Waves With… Hudson Williams, part of TIFF Next Wave’s programming centred on under-25 creators and audiences. He will discuss his work in YAGA and ‘Heated Rivalry‘, as well as the upcoming independent feature “Apparatus“, while looking back at the short films, collaborations and creative community that helped shape his career. There is something especially appealing about that idea of hearing from a performer while his career is still taking shape, rather than waiting for the retrospective conversation years down the road.
The other conversations have their own reasons to make room in a TIFF itinerary. Lee Min-ho arrives in Toronto for the World Premiere of “The Assassin(s)“, bringing nearly two decades of Korean popular culture with him and making his first North American onstage appearance in more than a decade. Rachel Morrison returns following her TIFF ’24 debut with “The Fire Inside” for the World Premiere of “Love of Your Life“, while Chris Rock brings “Misty Green” to the Festival and joins the series for a conversation about his work as a director, writer, actor, producer and comedian.
And now comes the part I always find both thrilling and slightly terrifying. The schedule is no longer an abstract collection of dreams. It is a map of possibilities, with early morning press screenings, impossible transitions, films I already know I need to see and discoveries I haven’t even imagined yet. TIFF Members begin buying tickets by level on August 21, with single tickets going on sale to the public August 31, and I’ll be trying to snag a few for me and my buddy while penciling in as many press screenings as I can manage. Suddenly, the Festival that has been building through announcements all summer is something I can actually plan, and perhaps this is finally the year I stop walking past In Conversation With… on my way to the next screening. Andrew Scott may have already made that decision for me. Now I just have to figure out how much TIFF I can possibly fit into eleven days.
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If Part One of our look at the East Hampton Library’s 22nd Annual Authors Night captured the sheer excitement of the evening, Part Two reveals why this particular summer tradition has become something far more interesting than a glamorous book signing.
Under one enormous tent on August 8, worlds that ordinarily have very little reason to collide suddenly did. Historians sat near novelists. Political insiders shared space with chefs. Architects, journalists, comedians, artists, grief writers and mystery authors met readers face-to-face, while conversations moved effortlessly from the White House to Montauk, from James Baldwin to Sid Caesar, from the Titanic to Tarot.
That eclecticism is the secret of Authors Night. You may arrive looking for one writer and leave carrying the work of someone you had never heard of two hours earlier.
At the center of any gathering devoted to American nonfiction stands Robert A. Caro, whose monumental The Power Broker changed the way generations understood not merely Robert Moses, but the machinery of political power itself. More than half a century after its publication, Caro’s study remains startlingly relevant because its real subject was never simply one man. It was what happens when ambition, government and unchecked authority converge.
Nicholas Boggs brought Baldwin, his major biography of James Baldwin, returning readers to one of America’s most essential literary and intellectual voices. Baldwin’s questions about race, sexuality, belonging and America’s ability—or refusal—to examine itself have hardly grown less urgent.
That examination of America continued with Gloria Browne-Marshall’s A Protest History of the United States, while Eddie S. Glaude Jr. brought America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries, considering how America’s celebrations of itself inevitably collide with the parts of its history it would sometimes rather leave outside the ceremony.
Jonathan Mahler turned his attention toward another kind of American power in The Gods of New York, exploring the personalities and forces that shaped a city forever negotiating between money, ambition, politics and myth. Nearby,
Julian Zelizer
Julian Zelizer offered The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden: A First Historical Assessment, bringing together the kind of immediate historical examination that begins almost before an administration has disappeared from view.
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre arrived with Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines, while Don Lemon brought two books examining subjects that have defined much of his public career: race, religion, faith and America’s continuing argument with itself.
Then there was Bradford E. Billet, whose Chaos Reveals It contains enough history for several lives. Billet’s experiences encompass TWA Flight 800, September 11 and his tenure as New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs, dealing directly with the United Nations and State Department. It is precisely the kind of book Authors Night is made for: you pick it up because of the title and suddenly find yourself standing across from someone who witnessed history from inside the room.
Hassan Nemazee’s Persia, Politics and Prison offered another journey through power and consequence, while Aziz Abu Sarah’s The Future Is Peace turned toward one of humanity’s oldest and most elusive ambitions: finding a way through conflict rather than perpetuating it.
The evening was equally rich in cultural history. David Margolick’s When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy revisits the astonishing influence of the comic genius whose television work helped shape modern American comedy. Carol Leifer, herself part of comedy history and famously associated with the inspiration for Elaine on Seinfeld, took a considerably less solemn approach with How to Write a Funny Speech . . . for a Wedding, Bar Mitzvah, Graduation & Every Other Event You Didn’t Want to Go to in the First Place. Even the title knows exactly what room it has walked into.
Tom Junod brought In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man, while Jay McInerney, forever associated with the literary electricity of New York, offered See You on the Other Side. Amy DuBois Barnett’s If I Ruled the World joined Gayle Feldman’s Nothing Random, Jenna Blum’s wonderfully titled Murder Your Darling,
Amy Chozick
Amy Chozick’s With Friends Like You, Amy Ephron’s Unseasonably Cold
Adam Ross
Adam Ross’s Playworld, and Joanna Margaret’sThe Daughters among the fiction and literary works inviting readers into entirely different worlds.
Then there was one of the titles impossible to walk past without stopping: J. Brooke’s I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side. In an age when almost everyone seems to arrive with a version of events designed to secure allegiance before the facts have even entered the room, the title alone feels wickedly contemporary.
Mystery and suspense were everywhere. David Baerwald brought The Fire Agent, Rachel Ekstrom Courage Death on the Lanai
Tom Clavin
Tom Clavin Vengeance
Alex DeMille
Alex DeMille The Tin Man,
Steve Israel
Steve Israel The Einstein Conspiracy, Chris Pavone The Doorman, Bob Reiss The Impossible Detective
John Searles
John Searles Single Girls, Alyssa Sheinmel Such Sheltered Lives, and Charles Lachman They Shall Not See the Dawn. Aphrodite Jones, long known for examining notorious criminal cases, arrived with Michael Jackson Conspiracy, Jeffrey Sussman’s Mafia Hits, Misses, Wars, and Prosecutionspromised exactly the wonderfully combustible history its title suggests.
The East End itself naturally had its chroniclers. Christy Scott Cashman brought What Happened in Beulah, while David Cataletto’s Kings of the Coast: Montauk kept the geography decidedly local. Jennifer Ash Rudick’s Inside the Hamptons turned the lens on the homes and aesthetic identity of the East End
Michael Gross
Michael Gross’s Treasured Island examined another enclave synonymous with extraordinary wealth.
Architecture and design were particularly well represented. Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Paul Goldberger’s Why Architecture Matters asks us to look beyond buildings as objects and understand how the spaces surrounding us influence the way we live. David Netto’s Rosario Candela & The New York Apartment: 1927–1937 celebrates the architect whose elegant apartment houses helped define Manhattan luxury. Jeffrey Banks brought Storyteller, while
Steven Kasher
Steven Kasher’s Memoir of a Collection: Finding Meaning Through Art explored the deeply personal relationship between collector and object.
Kendell Cronstrom and Alejandro Saralegui
Kendell Cronstrom and Alejandro Saralegui each celebrated Madoo, preserving the extraordinary Sagaponack garden and creative world associated with artist Robert Dash, while Alice Harris and Christian John Wikane’s A Night at the Disco turned the cultural clock toward another dazzling New York institution: the dance floor.
Food, naturally, had its own irresistible corner. New York Times food authority Florence Fabricant brought Salty Not Sweet, while chef Michael Symon offered Symon’s Dinners Cooking Out.
Jenn Lueke, Sabrina Rudin, Ali Rosen
Jenn Lueke’s Don’t Think About Dinner, Ali Rosen’s The Slow Burn, and Sabrina Rudin’s Healthy With a Side of Happy approached the pleasures—and daily realities—of feeding ourselves from very different directions.
There were books about the body and the complicated business of taking care of it. Breast surgeon Dr. Elisa Port offered The Breast Advice
Michael J. Norton
Michael J. Norton’s deliciously irreverent The S** I Heard at Yoga* suggested that wellness culture deserves a raised eyebrow along with the downward dog.
Some of the evening’s most affecting books dealt with what happens when life refuses to follow the plan. Danielle Crittenden’s Dispatches from Grief and Kate Doerge’s Reimagining Grief confronted loss from different perspectives
Susan Klein and Cynthia Schaffner
while Susan Klein and Cynthia Schaffner brought Heart Art. David Biro’s The Unstoppables looked toward endurance, and April Reynolds’ The Shape of Dreams toward the landscapes we construct within ourselves.
Elsewhere beneath the tent were Lenny Ackerman with Moments Out of Time; Nelson Aspen with Kindred Spirits: A Titanic Talk; Andrew Blauner with On the Couch; Karen and Bill Brodsky with Beyond Honor; Judy Batalion with The Last Women of Warsaw; Harriet Newman Cohen with Passion and Power
Ken Davidoff
Ken Davidoff with 101 Lessons From the Dugout; Tom Freston with Unplugged; Luke Goebel with Kill Dick; Bianna Golodryga with Don’t Feed the Lion
Xochitl Gonzalez
Xochitl Gonzalez with Last Night in Brooklyn; Harrison Hill with The Oracle’s Daughter; Madeleine Henry with The Last Celebrity
Andrew Lownie
Andrew Lownie with Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York
Conner Martin
Conner Martin with The Silver Fish
Lisa Raicek
Lisa Raicek with The Plunge; Deborah Goodrich Royce with Best Boy
Sydney Sadick
Sydney Sadick
Sydney Sadick with Aim High; Allison Winn Scotch with The Insomniacs; John Seabrook with The Spinach King; Heather Ann Thompson with Fear and Fury; and Jessica Walker with The Secret Astronomers.
Monte Farber and Amy Zerner
Monte Farber and Amy Zerner
Monte Farber
Then there were Monte Farber and Amy Zerner whose books on Tarot are legendary. The longtime creative and spiritual partners arrived carrying a book they wrote 35 years ago, when Tarot existed considerably farther outside the mainstream than it does today. As they pointed out, they were writing about Tarot long before Tarot became a cultural trend. There is something rather wonderful about that. Authors Night is necessarily obsessed with what is new—the new novel, the new biography, the new investigation, the book everyone will be discussing tomorrow. But books have their own clocks. Some explode immediately. Others wait patiently for the culture to catch up with them. Thirty-five years later, Tarot is everywhere. What once occupied the esoteric edges now fills bookstores, social media feeds and conversations about spirituality and consciousness. Monte Farber and Amy Zerner were there before the fashion arrived.
That may be the perfect way to understand Authors Night itself. For all the famous names, beautiful homes, summer clothes and Hamptons glamour, the evening ultimately celebrates something considerably less fashionable and far more enduring. Ideas survive.
They move from writer to reader, sometimes immediately and sometimes decades later. They are argued with, rediscovered, rejected, reconsidered and occasionally understood by an entirely different generation than the one for which they were originally written.
On Saturday night in East Hampton, nearly 100 writers arrived carrying those ideas between two covers and thousands of conversations began.
Artavazd Pelechian’s “Land of the People“
My TIFF cinematic adventure is already beginning to look slightly dangerous, and now TIFF has given me another reason to keep circling around all these titles. With the announcement of the 2026 Wavelengths and TIFF Classics programmes, the 51st Toronto International Film Festival is filling in another corner of the festival experience, one that moves from boundary-pushing contemporary cinema to restored films with histories of their own. As someone heading into TIFF51 with my accreditation confirmed and another festival marathon waiting to unfold, these are exactly the kinds of announcements that make the planning both exciting and slightly overwhelming. I went through the selections knowing full well that I cannot see everything, and still found myself making mental notes.
Wavelengths feels particularly inviting this year, with 11 feature films alongside shorts and mid-length works from filmmakers working across a wonderfully eclectic range of cinematic forms. Beatrice Gibson’s “At Night“, Lisandro Alonso’s “Double Freedom“, Nicolás Pereda’s “Everything Else is Noise“, Angela Schanelec’s “My Wife Cries“, Denis Côté’s “Nobody’s Violence“, and Radu Jude’s “The Diary of a Chambermaid” are among the feature films catching my eye, while the World Premiere selections open up an even more adventurous corner of the programme. Yuula Benivolski’s “The Black Box is Orange” and John Torres’ “The Remotes” arrive, while the short and mid-length selections bring together filmmakers including Parastoo Anoushahpour, Rita Ferrando, Kamal Aljafari, Maryam Tafakory, James Richards, Simon Liu, and Vika Kirchenbauer. Then there is Johann Lurf’s “Forever…Forever“, receiving a North American Premiere in 70mm. That is a lot of cinematic possibility packed into one programme.
Ken Russell’s “The Devils“
TIFF Classics offers another kind of invitation, sending audiences back through cinema history with restorations and rediscoveries. The captivating arrival of Ken Russell’s “The Devils” in a 4K director’s cut with Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave is enough to make one stop scrolling, matching the excitement of Lynne Stopkewich’s “Kissed” return in a new 4K restoration. John Abraham’s “Report to Mother“, Fei Mu’s “Spring in a Small Town“, and Kon Ichikawa’s “Ten Dark Women” also receive new restorations, each bringing a very different cinematic history into the festival. The Pelechian Project adds several newly restored films by Armenian filmmaker and theorist Artavazd Pelechian, including “Land of the People“, “The Beginning“, “We, The Seasons,” and “The End“. There is something particularly appealing about encountering these films inside a festival that is also filled with premieres. TIFFbecomes a place where a new film can sit down beside a film made decades ago, and both can suddenly become part of the same conversation.
That is part of what I’m looking forward to about TIFF51. I know I will arrive with lists, plans, schedules, and plenty of films I desperately want to see, and I also know the festival has a way of throwing something unexpected into the path. Wavelengthsoffers the chance to wander into films that may challenge how I watch, while Classicsoffers the pleasure of seeing remarkable films given another life on the big screen. Somewhere between the World Premieres, the North American premieres, the restorations, the experimental shorts, and the films I have not yet even heard of, another chapter of my TIFF story is waiting to be written. And with the festival still weeks away, my film energy is already beginning to get me into trouble.
Radu Jude’s “The Diary of a Chambermaid“. Courtesy Cannes Film Festival.
2026 TIFF CLASSICS PROGRAMME (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
Ken Russell’s The Devils | Ken Russell | United Kingdom |1971
North American Premiere of 4K restoration, courtesy of Warner Bros. Clockwork
Kissed | Lynne Stopkewich | Canada | 1996
World Premiere of 4K restoration, courtesy of Canadian International Pictures
Report to Mother (Amma Ariyan) | John Abraham | India | 1986
North American Premiere of 4K restoration, courtesy of Film Heritage Foundation
Spring in a Small Town (Xiao cheng zhi chun) | Fei Mu | China | 1948
World Premiere of 4K restoration, courtesy of the China Film Archive
Ten Dark Women (Kuroi jûnin no onna) | Kon Ichikawa | Japan | 1961
North American Premiere of 4K restoration, courtesy of Kadokawa Corporation
PELECHIAN PROJECT
Land of the People | Artavazd Pelechian | Armenia, USSR | 1966 (10 mins.)
The Beginning | Artavazd Pelechian | Armenia, USSR | 1967 (10 mins.)
We | Artavazd Pelechian | Armenia, USSR | 1969 (27 mins.)
The Seasons | Artavazd Pelechian | Armenia, USSR | 1975 (31 mins.)
The End | Artavazd Pelechian | Armenia | 1992 (8 mins.)
North American Premiere of 4K restorations, courtesy of Coproduction Office
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