Blake Heathcote worked as a freelance director and playwright in the theatre, and directed many Canadian premieres as well as over a hundred other productions across Canada and in the United States. He also 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. While working with Ayckbourn at the Theatre in the Round in North Yorkshire, Blake conceived the idea of creating a similar theatrical space in Port Colborne, Ontario, where he was Artistic Director of the Showboat Festival Theatre from 1987 to 1997. Based on Blake's design and community efforts, funds were raised and the theatre was built, having its inaugural season in 1997. Blake then went on to found a new theatre company in Port Dalhousie, Ontario. That company, Theatre in Port, continues to thrive with its intimate 100-seat theatre. He resigned as Artistic Director in 1999 to concentrate his time on writing projects, although he continued on as artistic advisor through the 2000 season. He has written fifteen plays, some of which have been produced across North America and in the U.K. He has also written two best-selling non-fiction books, Testaments of Honour, and A Soldier's View, and published The Survivor: Scruffy's War, in the fall of 2013. He is currently working on two new books, We Will Meet Again, and In Flanders Fields: Writing on War, Loss and Remembrance, to be published by Knopf Canada in October 2015.