Mr. Blake Heathcote

Blake Heathcote was born and raised in Toronto, and worked as a freelance director and playwright in the theatre, subsequently directing many Canadian premieres as well as over a hundred other productions across Canada and in the United States. He has worked as assistant director to renowned Broadway director Hal Prince on three musicals, as well as with playwright/director Sir Alan Ayckbourn in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, where Sir Alan directed two of Blake's plays at the Stephen Joseph...See more

Blake Heathcote was born and raised in Toronto, and worked as a freelance director and playwright in the theatre, subsequently directing many Canadian premieres as well as over a hundred other productions across Canada and in the United States. He has worked as assistant director to renowned Broadway director Hal Prince on three musicals, as well as with playwright/director Sir Alan Ayckbourn in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, where Sir Alan directed two of Blake's plays at the Stephen Joseph Theatre-in-the-Round. He has written fifteen plays, some of which have been produced across North America and in the U.K. In 1999, inspired by his father and grandfather's experiences in WW 1 and WW 2, Blake conceived the Testaments of Honour project whose objective is to chronicle on video first-hand accounts of Canadian veterans to provide future generations with a richer, deeper understanding of Canadian history through use of first-person testaments. Random House of Canada approached Blake to author books based on his interviews, and he subsequently published his first book, "Testaments of Honour" in October 2002, which became a number one Canadian bestseller. His second book, "A Soldier's View" also became a bestseller. This was followed by The Survivor: Scruffy's War" in the fall of 2013, "In Flanders Fields: Writing on War, Loss and Remembrance," in October 2015, and Unremarkable: A Good Place to Start," which was published in December 2015. He lives in Toronto and Bracebridge, Ontario. See less