Jacob Sampson

Jacob Sampson (born 1988) is a Canadian actor, playwright and theatre director from Nova Scotia. He is most noted for his play Chasing Champions, a dramatization of the life of boxer Sam Langford.

Background Born and raised in Coldbrook, Nova Scotia, he graduated from the theatre program at Acadia University in 2011. and William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew at Shakespeare by the Sea.

Chasing Champions Sampson's original concept had been to write a play about the more famous Canadian boxer George Dixon, but he shifted to writing about Langford, with whom he was previously not familiar, after repeatedly coming across Langford's name in his research.

The production won six awards at the Robert Merritt Awards in 2017, including wins for Sampson in both Outstanding Actor and Outstanding Play by a Nova Scotian Playwright.

Subsequent career He won a second Robert Merritt Award for Outstanding Actor in 2020, for his performance in Shauntay Grant's The Bridge.

In 2021, his short theatrical monologue Umoja Corp was performed as part of Obsidian Theatre's 21 Black Futures web series, directed by Leighton Alexander Williams.

In 2022, he was named associate artistic director of Halifax's 2b Theatre Company.