What to see, do, hear and read in Toronto this April

A Y2K rock band’s crowd-stomping tour

1 Named after the ill-fated nobleman whose assassination kicked off the First World War, Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand lit up the early 2000s music scene with hits like “Take Me Out” and “Do You Want To.” In the two decades since, the group’s lineup, still fronted by Alex Kapranos, has seen some changes. But their latest album is a testament to their staying power: The Human Fear topped the Scottish album charts when it was released in January. The band concludes the North American leg of their tour here before heading to Europe. April 15, History

A play about the dark side of foodie culture

2 Is it unethical to be a foodie in the age of environmental collapse? This magical-realism play by renowned Canadian playwright Guillermo Verdecchia takes that question to the extreme. It follows a family patriarch who weathers the modern apocalypse by pursuing increasingly bizarre and exploitative gastronomical experiences. His fervent quest for earthly delights propels the plot to Beirut, the fictional Centre of Avant-Garde Geography and a cave on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. First staged in Winnipeg in 2023, the show makes its Toronto debut at the Tarragon Theatre this month. April 1 to 27, Tarragon Theatre

A cinematic night of otherworldly music

3 Hans Zimmer has written some of the most recognizable film scores of the past 20 years, including the swashbuckling fiddles of Pirates of the Caribbean, the wild organs of Interstellar and the ethereal soundscapes of Dune. The TSO, under director Trevor Wilson, performs these pop orchestra pieces and more. It’s accompanied by Toronto’s Amadeus Choir, an ensemble with more than 50 years of choral history. April 1 and 2, Roy Thomson Hall

A narrative history of Chinese immigration

4 In the mid-1800s, tens of thousands of Chinese people migrated to the US, which was then known as Gum Shan—gold mountain. They became scapegoats for the nation’s economic downturn and faced bigotry, persecution, lynchings and the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which effectively made Chinese Americans the country’s first undocumented immigrants. New Yorker writer Michael Luo explores this painful history in a new nonfiction book, Strangers in the Land, which takes its title from a quote by the US Supreme Court judge who upheld the immigration ban. April 29

A thriller about lies, secrets and sisterhood

5 “Julie Chan is Dead” is the debut novel from a 24-year-old University of Toronto criminology grad and former skin care influencer Liann Zhang. It follows estranged twins, one down on her luck and the other living a picture-perfect existence as an influencer. When the latter dies suddenly and inexplicably, an identity swap ensues. The book dives into the darkness at the core of influencer culture—and the risk that the surviving twin might share her sister’s fate. The timely caper made such an impression on publisher Simon and Schuster Canada that they’ve already bought a second book by Zhang. April 29

A Halifax folk singer’s reflections on love

6 Born in PEI, singer-songwriter Rose Cousins has received national honours from the Canadian Folk Awards and a Juno. Her latest album, Conditions of Love, Vol. 1, dropped in March, following the single “I Believe in Love (and It’s Very Hard),” a soft piano-backed tune propelled by a lo-fi beat. Its title reflects the theme of the album, a meditation on the many faces of love—good, bad, ridiculous, gentle and devastating. April 11, The Concert Hall

An all-Canadian coast-to-coast comedy show

7 In a comedy scene dominated by American acts—and with Canadian institutions like Just for Laughs struggling to stay afloat—the Snowed In Comedy Tour is a refreshing success story. The rotating cast of stand-up comics is back on the road for the show’s 16th edition, performing in 70 cities across the country. Four Just for Laughs veterans will take the stage this time around: actor and multi-award-winning comedian Pete Zedlacher, Snowed In founder Dan Quinn, and Erica Sigurdson and Paul Myrehaug of the CBC Radio comedy show The Debaters. April 12, The Royal Theatre

An entrancing artwork’s homecoming

8 After leaving the AGO in 2023 to tour galleries in Rochester and Kentucky, Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room—Let’s Survive Forever is returning to Toronto. It’s a hometown success story: after Kusama created the installation in 2017, some 4,700 donors pitched in to make it part of the gallery’s permanent collection. The room contains a multitude of reflective balls and is an immersive meditation on minimalism and infinite space—as well as a psychedelic photo backdrop for the Instagram set. Opens April 5, AGO

An unflinching look at the artifacts of Auschwitz

Eighty years ago, soldiers from the Soviet Union’s Red Army invaded Nazi Germany from the east and arrived at the cast iron gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. There, they discovered some 7,000 prisoners—and evidence of unprecedented crimes. Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away, a touring exhibition that opened in Madrid in 2017 and is now showing at the ROM, invites the public to retrace the steps of the soldiers and witness, as they did, remnants of the 1.1 million murders committed at the camp. We spoke to exhibition curator Robert Jan van Pelt, a Holocaust scholar and professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo, about the stories behind some of the artifacts. Until September 1, ROM