Awards & Media

What media says about us

Over 40 Dora Mavor Moore Nominations & Awards

2019 George Luscombe Mentorship Award – Jacquie PA Thomas
2004 Harold Awards – Jacquie PA Thomas & Michael Spence
2013 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal – Jacquie PA Thomas

“Theatre of the unique… No Toronto company is more distinctive.” – The Toronto Star

“There’s little else like it.” — NOW Magazine

“Anything from Theatre Gargantua is a must see.” — CBC Radio

“Jacquie Thomas’s direction is fluid and inventive and filled with physical movement and striking images and sounds…” — Toronto Star

“Thoughtful and provocative, The Sacrifice Zone delivers an emotional roller coaster that any theatre fanatic should endeavour to experience…” — Mooney on Theatre

“…A strong, emotionally charged tragedy made haunting, beautiful, and damned by a team of artists who know that words are not enough.” — Bateman Reviews

“Fabulous! It’s a fabulous, terrific piece of theatre. You must go!”  — CBC 99.1

“Theatre Gargantua is top-of-the-line when it comes to multi-disciplinary works. Every production is filled with dazzling technical wizardry and imaginative physicality, and the subject matter is always provocative. […] There is never a dull moment onstage in a Theatre Gargantua production.” — The Globe and Mail

“Fire in the blood has a whole new meaning in Michael Spence’s Imprints…the Theatre Gargantua show, relying on the company’s trademark physicality and a cappella music, has a compelling visceral excitement…there’s murder, treachery and a touch of incest…director Jacquie P.A. Thomas’s staging is striking.” — NOW Magazine

“Exuberantly executed, not-a-moment-wasted 60 minutes of creative theatrical responses.” — Globe & Mail

“Spence has written a superb script.” — Classical 96.3

“One of the best Physical Theatre pieces of the season” — Stageandpage.com

“UR going 2 luv e-DENTITY. and BTW, it’s often LOL funny.” — The Toronto Star

“… [the audience] literally jumped up and gave one of the sincerest ovations I have ever seen.”  — CBC Radio

” **** – compelling theatre … theatre of the best sort. … Gargantua never ceases to push the boundaries of our imaginations. And beyond those boundaries, it is clear, Gargantua has envisaged a whole new world and called it theatre.”  — The Toronto Sun

“Marked by Gargantua’s genius”  — The Toronto Sun

“A hypnotic web of sounds and images” — NOW Magazine

“A haunting, visceral, remarkably pertinent and original theatrical experience … successful culmination of three years’ work … not likely to be very soon forgotten.”  — The Toronto Star

“Theatre Gargantua attacked a deep and difficult issue with such astute creativity. You are led through a captivating experience of sight and sound. Theatre Gargantua has mastered the art of emotional suspense.”  — Oregon Live

“Presented with art, intelligence, strain and sweat … high theatrics and imagistic feel.” — Eye Magazine

 “Beautifully danced duets … ingenious set … what’s quite wonderful about this mix of song, dance and theatre is the way one element rises beautifully out of, and falls back into, another.”  — Eye Magazine

“The movement, especially, is marvelously tender, as hearts flutter upward, taking wing, or are held in check by uncertain hands.” — NOW Magazine

 “Spectacular … performed largely in mid-air, it is filled with visual beauty.” — Globe & Mail

“Funny, lovely, bawdy, haunting … enacted through precise and demanding choreographed movement, verging on acrobatics … The Trials is like a vivid dream, the kind that makes you wake up giggling, or in tears at some lost, precious moment.” — Theatrum

 “The Trials glows with a white heat illumination and a haunting quality that transports audiences to a medieval world.” — NOW Magazine

 “Templar Tale enigmatic and sublime … Under [Thomas’] seamless direction, the talented six-member cast performs an acrobatic ceremony.” — Eye Magazine

 “… lush medieval costumes and ingenious ‘transformer props’ … text compiled by Thomas and writer/dramaturge Victoria Ward, contains lots of moving and sensual found poetry. This provides considerable verbal pyrotechnics and a string of striking, evocative word-pictures … to accompany the ravishing, candlelit tableaux and muscular, fluently choreographed dances.”  — Globe & Mail

“A crazy quilt of passionate imagination and image … boldly ambitious … a turbulent, surrealistic composition.”  — The Toronto Star

 “… a strong and extremely watchable cast … exhilarating dance moves … expressed superbly in dance and song … enticing performance”  — Manchester on Stage, UK

“One of the most beautiful multimedia shows of the season.”  — L’Express de Toronto

“Both fresh and edgy … speaks as readily to the heart and mind as it does to the ear.” — The Toronto Sun

“It’s the kind of Canadian play with enough cleverness to make you glad to be watching theatre in Toronto.”— Globe & Mail

“Superb staging and physical performance, sweet and trance-inducing a capella singing, and with strong writing from Meryn Cadell … shocks and delights as the dream ends and the veil between audience and performer is swept away.” — Eyeopener

“The piece demands intimate examination of our repulsion and fascination with violence, and Cadell is an expert observer … very impressive … engrossing.” — NOW Magazine

Newsletter Sign-up

Subscribe here to get our latest news.