Wilberforce at Blyth: Performing Blackface and Black Lives.

This article examines the 2015 production of *The Wilberforce Hotel* at the Blyth Festival Theatre, a professional Canadian theatre founded in the 1970s in rural Ontario with a mandate to produce exclusively Canadian works. The play, written by white playwright Sean Dixon and directed by Philip Akin, portrays the history of Austin Steward and the Wilberforce Settlement, a primarily Black community in southwestern Ontario, while controversially incorporating blackface performances by white actors to confront the theatre's and Canada's racist histories. The article situates the production within broader discussions of Black erasure in Canadian settler narratives, the legacy of minstrel shows in Canada, and the challenges theatres face in addressing historical oppression and racist portrayals on stage. Ultimately, *The Wilberforce Hotel* serves as a case study in how Canadian theatre negotiates the complexities of representing marginalized histories while grappling with problematic performance traditions.