This highly theatrical adaptation of Timothy Findley's classic novel traces the brutal coming of age of Robert Ross—a sensitive idealist who goes off to the Great War in 1915. Ross, who has a fondness for animals and shares a strong bond with his wheelchair-bound sister, trades his comfortable surroundings in Canada for the nightmare world of trench warfare. We watch Ross's slow unravelling as he moves from home to train to barracks and, finally, to the mud, smoke, and chlorine gas of the front line in France. With death and dying everywhere around him, Ross makes a desperate attempt to show his faith in life. Cruelty, heroism, terror and honour—The Wars takes us deep inside the mind of a soldier and straight onto the bloody battlefield. The Wars is one of Canada's most beloved novels, winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1977. This adaptation evokes the spirit, imagery, and heart of the novel, and adds the immediacy of the theatrical form.

Dennis Garnhum is the Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary. In 2007 his adaptation of Timothy Findley's The Wars premiered at Theatre Calgary before being transferred to the Vancouver Playhouse. Dennis has directed plays at most of the major theatre companies in Canada. For the Stratford Festival of Canada, Dennis directed The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and the premieres of two plays by Timothy Findley, Shadows and The Trials of Ezra Pound. For the Shaw Festival: The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Still Life, Sorry, Wrong Number and S.S. Tenacity. Dennis has directed the premiere productions of Maureen Hunter's Vinci, Steve LaPlante's Down The Main Drag, and Teresa Rebeck's Two Orphans.

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