In 2007, Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer worked together in "Inherit the Wind" on Broadway.

For these two veterans of stage and screen, their appearance in Stratford, Ontario at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival was more than a pit stop. Both men are spending several months at the festival performing.

The Canadian-born Plummer has been here many times, but with a wink to his early bad-boy days, he wondered why he had not been asked to be part of the first festival in 1953.

"I was dying to come and Tyrone Guthry, who was a great director who really started this whole thing off with a bang, had got some terrible rumor that I was a drunk and womanizer and totally unreliable in everyway, so he didn't hire me," said Plummer. "I was dying to be in on the first season."

Plummer, a two-time Tony Award winner suggested doing "Caesar and Cleopatra" this year.

"It's the one George Bernard Shaw show that has glamor to it and fun," said Plummer. "It sort of has sexual and romantic undertones, which is unusual for Shaw."

When Plummer co-starred with Dennehy on Broadway, he suggested Dennehy come up to Stratford. In his freshman season here, the two-time Tony Award winner is performing a couple of one-act shows including, "Hughie" by Eugene O'Neil and "Krapp's Last Tape" by Samuel Becket, under the direction of long-time collaborator, director Bob Falls.

"Bob and I started out and have continued having one rule which we've adhere to, which is we only do plays that we're not sure we can do," explained Dennehy. "We only do plays that terrify us."

Currently, the crew is getting the stage ready for "All's Well That Ends Well," and in true fashion, Dennehy is playing the king of France in this production.

"It's a completely different muscle that you use during Shakespeare," he said. "The language and the rhythm and the movement, it's precise. It's very precise because it is poetry, it's not prose."

Dennehy says hopes to come back to Broadway soon. Plummer's not in such a rush.

"I don't know. I've just been there," he said. "I have got to give it a rest, man. I also have to go out and make some money so I can afford to pay my property taxes. Then I'll go back to the theater. I'll always go back."

For details, go to StratfordShakespeareFestival.com.