Dan Needles (playwright)

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Dan Needles is best known as the playwright behind the popular Wingfield Series which has played across Canada for many years. It was performed at the Stratford Festival of Canada and was aired, in part, on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Needles' childhood was divided between Toronto and his family's farm at Rosemont, Ontario. While working as editor for a local newspaper in Shelburne, he created the character of Walt Wingfield, a retired stockbroker turned farmer who told about his adventures on the farm in weekly letters to the editor. In 1985, Needles and his brother Reed gathered these articles to write the play, Letter From Wingfield Farm, which was first performed by Reed. Several sequels followed, including Wingfield's Progress (1987), Wingfield's Folly (1990), Wingfield Unbound (1997), Wingfield on Ice (2001), and Wingfield's Inferno (2005). All these plays are performed by actor Rod Beattie.

Needles currently writes columns for Country Guide Magazine and Harrowsmith Country Life. His book With Axe and Flask, The History of Persephone Township from Pre-Cambrian Times to the Present was the winner of the 2003 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.

His most recent book is a collection of the fourth through sixth Wingfield plays entitled Wingfield's Hope.

[edit] Stephen Leacock Medal nominations and wins

Letters From Wingfield Farm, short-listed for the 1989 Stephen Leacock Medal
With Axe and Flask – A History of Persephone Township from Pre-Cambrian Times to the Present, winner of the 2003 Stephen Leacock Medal
Wingfield's Hope – More Letters from Wingfield Farm, shortlisted for the 2006 Stephen Leacock Medal