≈ 2 hours 20 minutes · With intermission
Last updated: November 9, 2018
Back in high school there were the sporty types and there were the arty types. I suppose it’s obvious that I fell into the arty group, though I confess I wildly admired the kids who really knew their way around sports, especially those who elevated their athleticism to a kind of artistry. Jacob Samson is gifted as both athlete and artist, and it’s due to this double blessing that we get to experience the thrill of Chasing Champions.
Jacob was originally looking to create a role for himself as the well known Halifax‑born featherweight George Dixon. However, during that research he kept coming across another Nova Scotia boxer with a ton of credentials, but whom he’d never heard of: Sam Langford. In the end, it was Sam’s story that Jacob opted to tell, and we’re all the richer for it.
NAC subscribers will remember the work of another Nova Scotian artist who raises his work to the point of athleticism, director Ron Jenkins. Ron’s work on our 2014 production of ENRON won him the Best Director award from the Capital Critics’ Circle that year. We are so happy to welcome Ron, Jacob and the outstanding Ship’s Company team to the national stage to tell us this story of a man whose name we’ll all soon remember, with a show we won’t soon forget.
Did You Know: Sam Langford
“The hell I feared no man. There was one man I wouldn’t fight because I knew he would flatten me. I was afraid of Sam Langford.”
— Jack Dempsey, Heavyweight Champion (1919–1926)
While Sam Langford is perhaps the greatest athlete never known, he has not been forgotten by the boxing world as Ring Magazine named him the second-greatest puncher in the history of the sport, and ESPN has ranked him among the top ten boxers of all time.
Langford began his professional boxing career in 1902 at the age of 19 with a knockout victory over Jack McVicker in Boston. Quickly rising to prominence, Langford defeated Joe Gans in 1903. The next year, he fought to a draw with Joe Walcott.
In 1906, though he was outweighed by at least twenty pounds, Langford faced the future heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Johnson. Langford lost the 15-round decision and never really had Johnson in trouble although, years later, exaggerated accounts circulated that Langford had nearly beaten Johnson. Once he was champion, Johnson refused to give Langford a title shot.
Sam Langford was elected to the Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1955 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
To learn more about Sam Langford, look up Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion by Clay Moyle. blackpast.org/perspectives/sam-langford-history-s-forgotten-boxer
Ship’s Company Theatre
Ship’s Company Theatre is located in picturesque Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, a community on the shore of the Bay of Fundy in Cumberland County. It came into existence in 1984 when co-founders Michael Fuller and Mary Vingoe staged the first production aboard the retired ferry vessel, the M.V. Kipawo. You’ll be in Her Arms by Midnight and Other Parrsboro Stories ran for six days and played to sold-out houses. To its credit, and since that first brave production 34 years ago, Ship’s has thrived in rural Nova Scotia, a most improbable success story; a story which points to the strength of the connection between the company and its community.
On behalf of the artists, staff, Board of Directors and entire community of Parrsboro, we want to express how delighted we are to share our work on Canada’s national stage. And we wholeheartedly invite you to come visit us. We have stunning scenery, we are an important global destination for fossil and geological history, and we are home to the highest tides in the world! Come see why we are so proud, and join us on deck.
Artists
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees