Paul Gross, the actor who played a Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable -- a "mountie" -- in the TV series "Due South," will be the titular melancholy Dane in Hamlet at the Stratford Festival in Canada in summer 2000.

The Canadian actor, internationally known for the TV series in which his character was paired with an American cop below the border, will be part of the prestigious Stratford ensemble, joining the ranks of famous festival Hamlets before him: Richard Monette, Colm Feore, Christopher Plummer, Brent Carver and Nicholas Pennell, among others.

Gross will also play Jack, 14th Earl of Gurney, in Peter Barnes' The Ruling Class at Stratford, the prestigious 48-year-old theatre company founded in southeastern Ontario by Tyrone Guthrie.

Gross has appeared in Canadian regional theatres and in films and TV programs. Hamlet begins previews May 3, 2000, at the Festival Theatre, and continues in repertory to Nov. 4, 2000.

-- By Kenneth Jones