Neptune’s Shine Boy and Black Theatre in Nova Scotia

Abstract

Shine Boy was genuinely homegrown. It was the first play ever commissioned from a Black playwright for production by a predominantly Black cast in one of Atlantic Canada’s mainstream theatres. Playwright George Boyd was born and bred in Halifax. The hero of his play, triple world champion George Dixon, was from Halifax. Most of the cast, both Black and White, was initially trained in the Maritimes and many still live there. (For some of these actors this production marked their first professional challenge.) The only exceptions were lead Douglas Richardson, a Black ex-Canadian jazz musician from Los Angeles and New York, designers Bill Chesney and Stephen Ross, and director Lorne Kennedy.