The Road to Bard: A Legacy of Shakespeare on Canada’s West Coast

This memoir from Christopher Gaze—the founding artistic director of Vancouver’s Shakespeare festival, Bard on the Beach—traces the always-dramatic story of a life lived on the stage. Through the process of sharing his dramatic life, Gaze takes his readers on a tour through fifty years of Canadian theatre.

From his early days as a young lad in an English boarding school to founding artistic director of Bard on the Beach, Christopher Gaze has lived a life in and for the theatre. This memoir traces his journey from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to Canada in 1975, the beginnings of Bard in 1990, and the build-up of the summer Shakespeare festival into a major event with 88,000 annual visitors. Along the way, Gaze has driven cattle in Montana, waited on tables, acted in countless stage productions, raised massive amounts of money for his beloved festival, and navigated the disastrous COVID shutdown.

In 2026, Bard on the Beach will enter its thirty-seventh season with Gaze at the helm. Written with warmth and lucidity, this memoir presents a half-century of theatre in Canada.

“A theatrical adventure story told with wit, warmth and plenty of Shakespeare, Christopher Gaze’s Road to Bard takes us on a delightful, personal journey that led to the creation of one of Canada’s finest theatres: Bard on the Beach.”

“In The Road to Bard, a compendium of delicious and daring stories, Christopher invites the world into his amazing journey from penniless actor with a beautiful tux in his battered bag to a master of Shakespeare’s words. I hear Christopher speaking to me on every page in his deeply rich, resonant voice: come join me, you’re not going to believe it!”

“Christopher Gaze’s memoir, The Road to Bard, is so much more than a chronicle of a life in theatre. It is a love letter to Shakespeare, to Canada, and to community. Written with the buoyant and twinkling wit that is characteristically Christopher, it reminds us that the theatre is not built of grids and greasepaint alone, but of faith, friendship, and grit.”