The Master Plan

"We looked all over the world for the perfect place to bring this vision to life, and we found it here in Toronto."                                                                                                                                                          

A biting satire about the stunning failure to build a smart city in Toronto. Adapted from award-winning writer and The Globe and Mail journalist Josh O’Kane’s best-selling book  Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy, the play takes us behind closed doors and reveals the corporate drama, epic personalities, and iconic Canadian figures involved in the messy affair between Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto.   

In 2017, when the public agency Waterfront Toronto decided to put up a parcel of land for development (just on the other side of Lakeshore Blvd from where Soulpepper sits), Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google’s Alphabet Inc., swept in with a proposal to create the city of the future. But the project quickly started to fall apart from uneasy partnerships, rigid local politics, and an overwhelmingly negative public response.  

The Master Plan exposes the hubris of big tech, the feebleness of government, and the dangers of public consultation with sharp wit and insightful commentary.

Photo of Ben Carlson by Dahlia Katz