Shawn Hitchins is a gay Toronto-based comedian, author, and actor. He is known for his

red hair Red hair (also known as orange hair and ginger hair) is a hair color found in one to two percent of the human population, appearing with greater frequency (two to six percent) among people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry and ...

and for sharing his experience as a sperm donor to a lesbian couple.

Early life

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

Career

In 2005, Hitchins spent a summer performing in with the drag trio The B-Girlz in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 2010, Hitchins appeared as a panelist on

MTV (Canada) MTV is a Canadian English-language specialty channel owned by Bell Media with the name and branding used under a licensing agreement with Paramount Global. The channel is devoted to talk, lifestyle and documentary programming, and also airs some ...

1 Girl 5 Gays ''1 Girl 5 Gays'', sometimes abbreviated as ''1g5g'', was a Canadian talk show that premiered on October 14, 2009, on MTV Canada. In October 2010, gay-interest sister network Logo picked up the program, and started airing it in the United States. ...

''. In 2011, Hitchins debuted his first one-man show called Survival of the Fiercest at the

Edinburgh Fringe Festival The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

where he made an offhand joke about the need for redheads to have a “Ginger Pride Walk.” In 2013, he returned to the UK to host the Ginger Pride Walk in Edinburgh, Scotland which gained international media attention on

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CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

Raidió Teilifís Éireann Raidi (; ; also written Ragdi; born August, 1938) is a Tibetan politician of the People's Republic of China. He served as a vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 2003 to 2008, and the highest ranking Tibeta ...

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

. In 2013, Hitchins debut his second one-man show called Ginger Nation at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

. 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 for the festival and the show was later brought to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. In 2015, Ginger Nation received top hit at the 25th Atlantic Fringe Festival. In 2016, Hitchins adapted the live show into a concert film, which screened at the 2017 InsideOut Film and Video Festival, the 2017

Cucalorus Film Festival The Cucalorus Film Festival is a film festival held annually in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is one of the largest film festivals in the U.S. South and recognized as a destination film festival for indie filmmakers. MovieMaker magazine recogni ...

, and the 2018 SF Indiefest. Huffington Post described the film as "vastly entertaining." In 2017, Hitchins released his debut memoir ''A Brief History of Oversharing'', published by

ECW Press ECW Press is a Canadian book publisher located in Toronto, Ontario. It was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named ''Essays on Canadian Writing''. They started publishing trade and scholarly book ...

Personal life

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

Books

* (Humor) *Hitchins, Shawn (2021). The Light Streamed Beneath It: A Memoir of Grief and Celebration.

. (Memoir)

Filmography

Documentary

* 2016: Shawn Hitchins: Ginger Nation - also writer, producer, collaborating director

Films

* 2010: The Con Artist - Metrosexual

Television

TV Mini-Series

* 2008: The Trojan Horse - Bellboy

TV Series

* 2009-2010:

- Himself * 2004: Wild Card - The FedEd Guy

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchins, Shawn 21st-century Canadian male actors 21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers Canadian stand-up comedians Canadian male film actors Canadian male television actors Canadian gay actors Gay comedians Canadian gay writers Living people Canadian memoirists LGBT memoirists 21st-century Canadian male writers Canadian male non-fiction writers 21st-century Canadian comedians Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century memoirists Canadian drag queens Comedians from Ontario Canadian male comedians