Friday Night in Toronto: Improv Musicals, Soul Jazz, and Latin Night at Lula Lounge

Friday is when Toronto's comedy and live-music circuits actually overlap, and this week both are worth paying attention to. The Second City Mainstage is running its 92nd revue, which sounds like a small milestone until you remember that's 92 different fully-produced sketch shows this venue has put up since it opened, most of them built and performed by comedians who went on to SNL, and this one is new. A few blocks over at Comedy Bar Danforth, WE BUILT THIS CITY! is an improvised musical, meaning the songs are made up on the spot based on audience suggestions, which is a harder trick than it sounds and one of the more purely entertaining formats to watch live.

On the music side, Jazz Bistro is two nights into Señor McNasty's Soul Jazz Experience, a full band booking (sax, trumpet, guitar, bass, drums) running a cover in the $20-50 range, a real step up in production from a lot of the city's smaller jazz bookings. If Latin music is more the mood, Latin Friday at Lula Lounge is a weekly institution at this point: a live band, a DJ, a 9pm dance lesson if you don't already know how to salsa, and a menu built around the night rather than an afterthought. For something rougher around the edges, Queen of the North headlines a four-band bill at Hard Luck Bar in Trinity Bellwoods, a 19+ show for anyone who wants a Friday that isn't polished.

Reggae fans have a smaller but genuine option: Cindy Craig, a Canadian reggae singer-songwriter, plays the Starlight Room at the El Mocambo, a room with a lot more history than its current bookings usually get credit for.

Why this week is worth it: Friday nights in Toronto tend to get reduced to "go to a bar," but the actual lineup this week spans a 92-show-deep improv institution, a real soul jazz residency, and one of the city's longest-running Latin nights, all within a few kilometres of each other. That range is the point of tracking a full week instead of a single headline event.

Browse everything live on the Toronto events page, see what's free this month on the free events page, or check the earlier-week roundup in Toronto this Wednesday's guide for the comedy-and-library side of the week.