Rod Beattie

When England's King Henry VIII falls for the young, beautiful Anne Boleyn, he must somehow remove his beloved wife, Katherine of Aragon. Church and state collide when he defies papal authority by seeking to divorce her. The consequences will be epochal for the country – and calamitous for the king’s adviser, Cardinal Wolsey, who has been playing a dangerous game of his own. Passion, political intrigue, and personal faith drive the action as this Stratford Festival production of Shakespeare's play brings vividly to life the thrilling human drama behind a pivotal moment in history.

In Shakespeare’s great drama of loss and reconciliation, a long-deposed ruler uses magical arts to bring within her power the enemies who robbed her of her throne and marooned her on a remote island. But what revenge does she mean to take?

In the midst of a record drought wells on the Seventh Line are drying up. A search to locate a new well on Wingfield Farm ensues, but distractions abound: a high-tech cattle drive, a battle with yellow jackets, a feud with a red-tailed hawk, an eccentric line-up of water witches and a well driller who is only too happy to perforate the ground at forty dollars a foot. Is it the end of farming for Walt and Maggie, or can the precious liquid be found?

In his fourth season on the farm (and his first as a married man) Walt Wingfield tries to preserve the memory of the old rural community of Persephone Township by promoting the crumbling Hollyhock Mill as a museum site. But the locals say the mill is haunted. Undaunted by such superstitious fears, Walt sets out to prove to the neighbours that there's nothing to this curse business - with near disastrous results.

A devastating fire at the Orange Hall in Larkpur leaves it a smouldering ruin. Walt Wingfield leads the charge to get it rebuilt, but lighting a fire under his fellow committee members proves a daunting task. Is it courage they lack, or is the devil in the details?

As the first frosts come to Persephone Township Walt and Maggie Wingfield are all set to welcome new life to the farm. She's expecting, and he's nesting. But Walt is alarmed about the old feuds that divide the neighbours and disturb the tranquillity of the community. His attempts to mend other people's fences meet with a resistance as stiff and cold as the weather itself. And the biggest challenge to them all is looming on the horizon.

When a captain of industry trades his pinstripe suit for overalls and retreats to a hundred acre farm, the residents of Persephone Township raise their eyebrows. Weekend farmers are a common enough sight, but this man seems to think he can make a living with a broken down racehorse and a single furrow plough. Letter From Wingfield Farm is the story of one man's attempt to embrace a less complicated world. In a series of letters to the editor of the Larkspur weekly newspaper, Walt Wingfield tells of the people and events of his first year as a man of the soil.

In his third year on the farm, after two profit-free seasons, Walt finally pinpoints the economic source of his problems and embarks on a course which brings him to his most profound crisis to date. In this sequel to Letter From Wingfield Farm and Wingfield's Progress Walt sets up a closed economy with his neighbours, prints his own currency and falls in love.

In his second season on the farm Walt faces a new challenge. The spectre of urban development looms on the Seventh Concession and Walt sounds the alarm. Can he mobilize the neighbourhood to save the rustic splendour of Larkspur? Does Larkspur want to be saved? Wingfield’s Progress is the story of Walt’s passionate response to a threat only he perceives. Larkspur and its residents are back at their hilarious best in this sequel to Letter From Wingfield Farm.

Robert Ross (Brent Carver) lives a protected adolescence in a well-off Toronto suburb. Secretive and withdrawn, he shares his thoughts only with his sister Rowena (Anne-Marie MacDonald) who is mentally disabled. He feels compassion for his weak and conventional father. He avoids any confrontation with his mother (Martha Henry), a dominating woman whose despondency at having given birth to a handicapped child has turned to bitterness. Rowena occupies a central position in Robert's existence of daydreams and make-believe. When she dies, Robert clashes openly with his family, and decides to take himself in hand. It's 1914. He enrolls in the Canadian army, and, after training in Alberta and Montreal, he finds himself in England and France. The war becomes another way for him to resolve his conflicts, his dramas, his passions--his wars.

The swaggering Petruchio agrees to marry the spitting hellcat, Katherine.