The character of Jack Crew may have been inspired by Keanu Reeves. Like Reeves, Jack is portrayed as an action film star with dark, handsome good looks but a reputation for being wooden on-screen. In 1995 Reeves portrayed the title role of Hamlet in Canadian theater and won rave reviews.
Geoffrey Tennant's history of breakdown while performing Hamlet may have been inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis who suffered a genuine nervous breakdown in 1989 and became convinced on stage that he was talking to the ghost of his own father, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis. He walked off in mid-performance.
Paul Gross and Martha Burns, who play on-again, off-again lovers Geoffrey and Ellen, have in their real lives been married since 1988. They have two children together.
Ellen says "sorry" 77 times over the run of the series.
The fictional town of New Burbage and its theater festival are presumably named after Richard Burbage, and actor-manager who was the star of many original Shakespeare plays and who spearheaded, in 1597, the construction of the original Globe theater in London.