Some years ago an experiment in producing Shakespeare’s plays was tried by the Earle Grey Shakespeare Company in the spacious grounds of Trinity College, University of Toronto. The completion of the first eight years of the annual open-air Shakespeare Festival in Toronto, Canada, seems to be as good a time as any to relate how this company came into being, what were its principles, and how far these latter have been followed.

It is a commonplace that chance plays a great part in any enterprise. So it was with the Festival. During the war years chance placed us in Toronto. Strangers in the city, my wife (Mary Godwin) and I spent one morning exploring its University grounds, which lie in its heart. Among the many fine buildings there we were especially attracted towards one in particular. Built of stone, in early Jacobean style, it closely resembled an English college. It was Trinity College, founded some ninety years before by Bishop Strachan, an Anglican.