The 37th season of Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach Shakespeare festival kicks off June 9th with Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor taking over the BMO Main Stage at Vanier Park.
One man has been there since the very beginning, founding artistic director Christopher Gaze. Now, comes a new book to tell the story of Western Canada’s largest Shakespeare festival by the man who started it all.
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Indeed, The Road to Bard: A Legacy of Shakespeare on Canada’s West Coast is really a story that only Gaze could tell.
“I wanted the story of Bard to be told, and I wanted it to be told by me,” he said. “Because after I’m not here, who’s going to write it?”
In The Road to Bard, Gaze talks about how Western Canada’s largest, not for profit professional Shakespeare festival came to be, from its first summer in 1990 to the year-round programming as well as professional and educational opportunities it provides now.
“And so, in a sense, it’s, God willing, an entertaining book, but it’s also, when people come to Bard in, I don’t know, 25 years time, and say, ‘Wow, this is great. How did it all begin?’ Someone can say, ‘Read that book.’”
Gaze says he fell in love with acting and the world of Shakespeare at boarding school back in England.
“When I was 13, almost 14, I was in my first Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing. I played Ursula. If you look in the book, you’ll see there’s a photograph of me. I was very, very pretty. And I fell in love with it then,” he said.
A young Christopher Gaze in his first Shakespeare production in 1966. (Harbour Publishing)
Gaze became a professional actor in 1973 and arrived in Canada two years later. By 1990, he had the idea to start an outdoor Shakespeare Festival at Vancouver’s Vanier Park.
The great Canadian-based stage actor Douglas Campbell, an early mentor, once told him, “You can start a theatre in your front room, on your front lawn, you can start streetside, you can start a theatre anywhere.” Campbell was also the one who suggested Gaze come to Canada.
But Gaze says it was his father who gave him that final push he needed to start Bard.
“We went to see a production. It was actually Midsummer Night’s Dream at the [Vancouver] Playhouse in the fall of ‘87. He died the following year. At the end of it, he said, ‘You can do better than that, can’t you, Gazey?’ And that’s when I thought, ‘Yes, I can.’”
Decades later, Bard on the Beach is the largest not for profit professional Shakespeare festival in Western Canada and one of the most successful in the world.
“It’s been a mission and I’ve stood on thousands of shoulders, including yours. And together, we’ve created something truly remarkable,” he said.
Like most other events, Bard faced its greatest test in 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Certainly, the overwhelming thought between me and the Executive Director of Bard, Claire Sekaki, and our Board of Directors was, we have to make this sustainable. We had to make it through the pandemic, which we did. We have to build our resources so that all is well in the years to come.”
Six years later, Gaze and his team are preparing for the festival’s 37th season. The mission has remained the same since Day One: to make Shakespeare relatable and entertaining with the help of a fantastic outdoor setting.
“Bottom line is, I’m a storyteller. I love to entertain. I’m naturally a happy person, and I want to make you happy too.”
While the 74-year-old shows no signs of slowing down, Gaze admits the time will come when he hands over the reins of Bard to a successor.
“If I couldn’t be here tomorrow, Bard would be very, very well managed artistically. Where I’m mostly concerned about is that we raise enough money while I’m still here. And that’s the big trick.”
“[But] as long as I’m here, I will be associated with Bard.”
The Road to Bard is a tale beautifully told about a life spent in the theatre, both on and off stage, and all the slings and arrows that come along with it. Beside an appendix listing all the Bard productions from 1990 to 2026, Gaze ends the book with a lengthy quotation from George Bernard Shaw. One line is particularly fitting.
“My life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.”
The Road to Bard: A Legacy of Shakespeare on Canada’s West Coast is available from Harbour Publishing.