John Shea (5/84 Much Ado About Nothing)
Excerpt from Christian Science Monitor 5/15/84: John Shea
Actor John Shea takes on another 'case' - as nuclear gumshoe
By Louise Sweeney / May 15, 1984
Shea sauntered into acting and into one of the big roles of his career. He was a government major at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, when he strolled into a Little Theater rehearsal with a fellow football team member who was in the cast. Theater director Lavinia Shaeffer asked him to read a part because they were one actor short; he strolled out of the reading with the lead in Shakespeare's ''Much Ado About Nothing'' and changed his major to acting.
© Christian Science Monitor
Excerpt from The Irish Echo 2/16/99: John Shea
Tracings John Shea - portrait of an artist
By Olivia Tracey February 16th by admin
Considering his strong Irish background, it’s not surprising that Shea attended Catholic school, became an altar boy and seriously considered a future in the priesthood. However, during a high school summer in Nantucket, he soon discovered the joys, he said, of "sex, drugs and transcendental meditation." Next came a potential career as a diplomat, until a college production of "Much Ado About Nothing," in which he played Benedick. Theater became his major and, after graduation, he was accepted into the prestigious Yale School of Drama.
© Irish Echo
Excerpt from Backstage 2/18/00: John Shea
FACE TO FACE: John Shea - Playing a Wounded Idealist
By Simi Horwitz Publication: BackStage Date: Friday, February 18 2000
At Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine-he was admitted on a debating-football scholarship-he majored in political science, thinking he'd serve as a diplomat. "I liked the idea of being paid to travel." The turning point occurred in his sophomore year when he played Benedick in the college's production of "Much Ado About Nothing." He was hooked and switched his major to theatre. "For me, theatre was the perfect synthesis of everything I had done up until that point."
© Backstage
Excerpt from In the Mind of... video interview 2004: John Shea
John Shea interview on In the Mind of...
Q: Was there a fork in the road experience that changed your life?
A: When I was in college, I went to Bates College. I was sneaking into the back of the theater to get my fake I.D. so I could buy beer for the guys on the football team. And the head of the theater saw me and said, "Read this." And when we finished the reading, she said, "Okay, you've got the part." I said, "What?" It turns out, it was Much Ado About Nothing, it was the first reading of the play. She was missing her leading man, and she offered me the role. And I accepted it. I took the challenge. And it changed my life.
© 2004 Redhead Entertainment Inc.
Excerpt from Bates Magazine Online 6/21/07: John Shea
Stages of Shea: Timing and talent have shaped the career of actor John Shea ’70
By Doug Hubley
Yet when he started acting, as a shy teenager, the appeal was about sheer survival. “I got to be somebody else,” he says. “And I found that that liberated me.” And yes, this was at Bates. Drafted to make a beer run one day in 1968, he found he had forgotten his backpack, with his very excellent fake ID in it, in Little Theatre after debate practice. Returning to the theater, Shea happened into the first reading for the spring production of Much Ado About Nothing, where theater professor Lavinia Schaeffer promptly dragooned him into playing the lead role of Benedick. For Shea, it was much ado about something. “I discovered acting is really what I was born to do,” he says. In short, another one of those portentous coincidences. “The best things that have happened in my life, happened by surprise,” Shea says. “When I think about that, there’s a miraculous quality to it.”
© Bates Magazine Online