Shawn Hitchins

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Shawn Hitchins
Born (1980-06-04) June 4, 1980 (age 44)
Children1
Website shawnhitchins.com

Shawn Hitchins is a gay Toronto-based comedian, [1] author, and actor. He is known for his red hair and for sharing his experience as a sperm donor to a lesbian couple. [2]

Contents

Early life

Hitchins was born in Egypt, Ontario. [3] In 2000, Hitchins briefly attended an acting program at George Brown College. [4]

Career

In 2005, Hitchins spent a summer performing in with the drag trio The B-Girlz in Provincetown, Massachusetts. [5]

In 2010, Hitchins appeared as a panelist on MTV (Canada) 1 Girl 5 Gays .

In 2011, Hitchins debuted his first one-man show called Survival of the Fiercest at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where he made an offhand joke about the need for redheads to have a "Ginger Pride Walk." [6] In 2013, he returned to the UK to host the Ginger Pride Walk in Edinburgh, Scotland which gained international media attention on BBC News, [7] The Guardian, [8] CNN, [9] Raidió Teilifís Éireann, [10] The Globe and Mail. [11]

In 2013, Hitchins debut his second one-man show called Ginger Nation at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. [12] The show recounts Hitchins' experience donating sperm to a lesbian couple as well as memories from adolescence, brushes with celebrity, and pride in his ginger hair. It received unprecedented media coverage [13] for the festival and the show was later brought to Canada, the United States. [13] In 2015, Ginger Nation received top hit at the 25th Atlantic Fringe Festival. [14]  In 2016, Hitchins adapted the live show into a concert film, which screened at the 2017 InsideOut Film and Video Festival, [15] the 2017 Cucalorus Film Festival, [16] and the 2018 SF Indiefest. [17] Huffington Post described the film as "vastly entertaining." [17]

In 2017, Hitchins released his debut memoir A Brief History of Oversharing, [18] published by ECW Press.

Personal life

In 2012, Hitchins welcomed a daughter after becoming a sperm donor for two close lesbian friends. [2]

Books

Filmography

Documentary

Films

Television

TV Mini-Series

TV Series

References

  1. ↑ "Shawn Hitchins: Ginger Nation". Time Out New York. Retrieved December 21, 2017.
  2. 1 2 Hitchins, Shawn (August 17, 2013). "Experience: I was a sperm donor for my friends". The Guardian. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  3. ↑ "It's always a great day in Egypt, Ont". TVO. July 27, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  4. ↑ "Former George Brown theatre students allege they were humiliated, abused by faculty | CBC News". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  5. ↑ "A Brief History of Oversharing: One Ginger's Anthology of Humiliation | Quill and Quire". Quill and Quire. October 17, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  6. ↑ "How Shawn Hitchins' Ginger Pride jokes ignited red-hot passion". CBC Radio. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  7. ↑ "Comedian leads Ginger Pride Walk". BBC News. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  8. ↑ "How Shawn Hitchins' Ginger Pride jokes ignited red-hot passion". CBC Radio. Retrieved December 21, 2017.
  9. ↑ Bellini, Jarrett. "Apparently This Matters: Gingers take to the streets". CNN. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  10. ↑ "March held in Edinburgh to demonstrate against gingerism". Raidió Teilifís Éireann. August 10, 2013. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Talking Points: Disney sinkhole, Ginger Pride Walk, picking up the cheque" . Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Ginger quest". Xtra. January 14, 2015. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  13. 1 2 BWW News Desk. "Shawn Hitchins Brings GINGER NATION to The Duplex Tonight". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved December 21, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Shawn Hitchins scores top hit at Fringe Festival with Ginger Nation". The Chronicle Herald. September 14, 2015. Retrieved December 21, 2017.
  15. ↑ "Spite and sperm donation: One comedian's misadventures in bringing his story to the screen | CBC Arts". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  16. ↑ "BEYOND THE REEL: Anghus reviews a broad bunch of films showing at Cucalorus 23 | | "Your Alternative Weekly Voice"". www.encorepub.com. Archived from the original on November 15, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  17. 1 2 Heymont, George (January 15, 2018). "Powering Through An Identity Crisis". HuffPost. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  18. ↑ Shawn, Hitchins (2017). Brief history of oversharing : one ginger's anthology of humiliation. Toronto. ISBN   9781770413269. OCLC   985966403.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  19. ↑ Hitchins, Shawn; Soja, Jonathan, Shawn Hitchins: Ginger Nation, Shawn Hitchins, retrieved January 18, 2018
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