2b Turns 25 with a Little Help From Their Friends

On Wednesday evening friends and fans of Halifax’s 2b Theatre gathered for 25 Years: The Music and the Muses, a musical celebration of the theatre company which featured a preview of an upcoming collaboration with Aquakultre, and songs from 2b hit shows Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, performed here by Ben Caplan, and The God That Comes, performed by Hawksley Workman. The show also featured interview segments with each of the three artists and 2b Artistic Director and co-founder Christian Barry by host Jeff Douglas that gave the audience a peek into the processes that helped these three musicians transition into the, apparently much more intense, world of the theatre. 

My biggest takeaway from the evening was twofold: I cannot wait until 2026 to see what is currently being called The Aquakultre Project, and it was not easy for Workman, Caplan, and the 2b teams to develop these shows together, even with their combined absolute prowess in both music and theatre; these were true labours of love that at times seemed like they might never come to fruition. 

Lance Sampson, known in his musical life as Aquakultre, grew up in Uniacke Square, a neighbourhood in the North End of Halifax that opened in 1966 to house folks who were displaced from the razing of Africville by the city. Since then the neighbourhood has faced much stigma, as outlined in this 2007 article by Stephen Kimber, due to continual mistakes that the city and province has made and, of course, systemic racism, dating back to the societal isolation and lack of city services provided to Africville in the first place. Sampson started trafficking drugs as a teenager and spent 19 months of a five year sentence in prison before he was released on Good Behaviour. Then he found music, taught himself to play the guitar, and never looked back. His third album Don’t Trip was long listed for the 2023 Polaris Prize. 

As he said in the show on Wednesday night, he learned that one of his relatives, Daniel Sampson, was the last person executed here, in 1935. Tim Bousquet has recently done a multipart series in The Halifax Examiner about this tragic case. In his new show with 2b Aquakultre explores the relationship between these two Sampsons, as well as the legacy and rich history of his ancestors, both in Uniacke Square and in Africville, building their lives and protecting their families under difficult and, frankly, unjust, circumstances.

Of course it can be argued that The God That Comes and Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story are both also “musicals,” even if they aren’t necessarily promoted as such, The Aquakultre Project immediately conjured up memories from both Ragtime and Parade in me. Aquakultre’s voice has an incredible range and he he oscillates between different musical genres so seamlessly. 2b Associate Artistic Director Jacob Sampson provided some incredible harmonica during the show stopping final number. Save me a seat, I cannot wait to see the final product of this project.

One thing about both The God and Comes and Old Stock is that it would be extremely difficult to separate the characters played by Hawksley Workman and Ben Caplan from Workman and Caplan themselves. Both give incredibly virtuosic performances that capture what is truly singular about their talents. Ben Caplan, as The Wanderer, Old Stock’s frenetic narrator whose gargantuan voice and stage presence draws the audience into a roller coaster ride of both jubilant music and heartbreaking truths simultaneously. There is also an element of playfully mischief in The Wanderer’s sometimes sardonic commentary on the more overtly contemporary political aspects of the show, best encompassed in the jaunty “Truth Doesn’t Live in a Book,” about the limitations of basing your morality and humanity only on the literal words of any religious text. 

I was hoping that Caplan might sing “Lullaby,” which he says has become one of his favourites from the show, and I agree; it has become one of my all-time favourite songs. As the title suggests it is the moment in the show when the pace slows right down as Chaim and Chaya welcome their child into the world and The Wanderer sings the baby to sleep reflecting on how Chaim and Chaya have all the same hopes, dreams, and worries for their child as every new parent does, but it is also compounded by the fact that they’re making a new life for their family from scratch in a new country.  

Hawksley Workman started out playing the drums perfuming the “Invocation” from The God That Comes, a rock n’ roll re-telling of The Bacchae (405 BC), largely considered to be Euripides’ masterpiece. Although Workman played all three characters in The God That Comes, it was interesting to see him, in a plaid shirt and ball cap, perform this more striped-down rendition of these songs. He showcased how masterfully he is able to tell this story, even in a much more nuanced way, as the emotion comes through in the wry and engaging way he connects with the audience. The lyrics to “Remember Our Wars” resonated so differently in 2025 than they did for me in 2013. Perhaps it’s time for a remount? 

Music Director Graham Scott also provided support in helping to bring all these songs to life.

Of course Barry and these these three shows are just one of the two bs that came together to form 2b theatre. It’s hard to remount parts of non-musical works for a celebration like this, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a huge shout out to Former Artistic Director and co-founder Anthony Black, whose plays Invisible Atom (2004) and especially When It Rains (2011) are just as iconic for fans of the company and in the eyes of Nova Scotian theatre history. 2b has also produced multiple plays by Hannah Moscovitch over the years, first introducing audiences here to one of our country’s most lauded playwrights back in 2008.

I wish more younger folks had been able to attend Wednesday’s celebration, mostly because I think it highlights something important for the youngest in our community to remember and take to heart: by the time it gets in front of an audience performers like Hawksley Workman and Ben Caplan are going to make it look easy- but creating shows like these is not easy. In fact, as they said over and over in different words, with various anecdotes, the creation process for these shows required a lot of difficult conversations and hard work. On my way home I found myself thinking about the creative work that I’m currently working on, and how difficult I have been finding it because the gulf between my first draft and the finished work of the idols who inspire me makes the Grand Canyon look like a puddle. Yet, as Workman and Caplan and Barry kept saying, it was in forging ahead even when they had no idea what the fuck they were doing and nothing seemed to make sense, and they seemed to be just in an endless chasm of process, that eventually something clicked into place, and it was magical. 

And with that 2b is officially 25 years old. It is worth repeating again and again and again that 2b originally came out of the Atlantic Fringe Festival, at a time when Anthony Black and Christian Barry were just starting their careers as directors, just beginning to imagine a future for themselves as artists being based here, in Halifax. They knew, as most young artists do, that they would need to be able to hone their skills by creating their own work, and that they would have to do this from outside of the establishment- they would need to start a theatre company of their own. The Atlantic Fringe Festival has birthed a huge array of theatre companies, many specifically just for the one show that is being produced that year, but it is important for everyone who makes theatre here to know that it is possible to start in the Fringe and go on to celebrate a 25th Birthday, having had 29 world premieres, and having travelled to 67 cities in 13 countries on five continents performing for more than 250,000 audience members. 

It’s possible. 

Red Like Fruit will be at the Traverse Theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe July 31-August 24, 2025, it will then travel to The Cultch in Vancouver February 18th-22nd, 2026. 

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story will be at ACT Shanghai International Contemporary Theatre Festival in August, 2025.