Succession is a story cycle about a rural community in transition. It follows Al, a musician burned out from too many nights playing the same classic rock songs, as he returns from Vancouver to the farm where he grew up in the Bearspaw district near Calgary.

Al's story is intertwined with those of his family, friends, and neighbours, as they struggle to come to terms with the choices they make, and those that are forced upon them by the suburbanization of their agricultural community. Succession explores themes of place and belonging, the place of art in working life, and urban and rural identity. Most of all it's a meditation on what is lost when the beautiful places of the earth are discovered and changed by outsiders—and what remains.

Art Norris was born the day after the assassination of JFK. The two events appear to be unrelated. He was raised on a dairy farm near Calgary, Alberta. He went on to study at the University of Victoria and earned a BFA in Theatre. He enjoyed several years of bohemian obscurity in Victoria, earning money with farm work, tree planting and daffodil harvesting while working away at music and writing. In the late eighties, Art opted for the stability of a career in the professional performing arts. He has worked as a stage carpenter, lighting technician, stage manager and technical consultant in theatres and concert venues in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, where he is now a stage manager and stage carpenter at the Jack Singer Concert Hall. Art lives with his wife and son on the family farm near Calgary, raising organic beef cattle.

Art Norris' profile page

Here is a cry of re-discovered love for a place and a way of life under threat; here is a celebration of people who prepare for the future without abandoning the past. Norris’s voice inspires trust. —Jack Hodgins

As the old cliché goes, good things come in small packages. Succession . . . is very short and very good. It is complete, unified and satisfying. —Edmonton Journal