John Shea (5/94 - 11/12 Selected Shorts)
Excerpt from New York Magazine 5/9/94: John Shea
Other Events
Symphony Space presents Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story through 5/18.This week, "Urgencies," with readings of works by Ariel Dorfman (read by B.D. Wong), Nathan Teitel (Fritz Weaver), Donald Barthelme (Arthur French), and Vesle Fensternmaker (John Shea) on 4/4 at 6:30. 2537 Broadway, at 95th St. $12.50 (864-5400).
© New York Magazine
New York Magazine 2/27/95: John Shea | Madagascar
The Written Word
"Selected Shorts" -- 3/1 at 6:30: Myra Carter reads E.M. Broner's Joking Around; Charles Keating reads Thomas Hardy's The Grave by the Handpost; John Shea reads Steven Schwartz's Madagascar. Symphony Space, Broadway at 96th St. (864-5400); $14.
© New York Magazine
Excerpt from New York Magazine 4/14/97: John Shea
Radio Highlights
Selected Shorts--4/12 at 8 pm (on 93.9 FM) & 4/13 at 1 pm (on 820 AM): Cape Cod Evening, by Ann Beattie, read by Mary Beth Hurt; Sun in an Empty Room, by John Hollander, read by Isaiah Sheffer; Dusk, by James Salter, read by John Shea; From Moss-Light to Hopper With Love, by Tess Gallagher, Read by Mary Beth Hurt; Hitchhiker, by Galway Kinnell, read by John Shea. WNYC, 820 AM/93.9 FM.
© New York Magazine
Playbill 12/8/98: John Shea
NYC "Selected Shorts" Readers Include Phyllis Newman & John Shea Dec. 9, 16
-- By Kenneth Jones 08 Dec 1998
Phyllis Newman, John Shea and Stephen Lang are among readers for the Jewish-themed "Amol iz Geven...Once Upon a Time," the Dec. 9 and 16 short-story readings in the popular "Selected Shorts" series at the Merkin Concert Hall, 129 W. 67th St. in New York City. Stories by Laura Cunningham, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholom Aleichem, Grace Paley, Yaacov Luria and Phillip Roth will be read 6:30 PM Dec. 9 by Newman (Subways Are for Sleeping, The Food Chain), Larry Keith (Titanic, After Play) and Laura Esterman (Marvin's Room); and 6:30 PM Dec. 16 by Lang (Wait Until Dark, A Few Good Men), Shea (End of the World, The Dining Room) and Isaiah Sheffer. Tickets are $17. For information, call (212) 501-3330.
© Playbill
Excerpt from Frostburg State University State Lines 4/1/02: John Shea
Short Stories Broadcast by WFWM Radio
• April 21: “The Secret of Old Music" by Auguste Villiers de L’Ilse-Adam, read by Philippe de Montebello, and “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence, read by John Shea.
© Frostburg State University
Excerpt from The Morning Call 10/24/02: John Shea
"E.T.,' "Beauty and the Beast' make deluxe DVD debuts
October 24, 2002|By Amy Longsdorf Special to The Morning Call - Freelance
"The Rocking Horse Winner" (1949, Home Vision, unrated, $40 DVD ) -- The folks at Home Vision have unearthed a genuinely creepy gem of a film. Like a feature-length episode of a "Twilight Zone," this black-and-white chiller (based on a D.H. Lawrence short story) is frightening without being conventionally scary. The DVD extras include Michael Almereyda's 20-minute film based on the same Lawrence story; a superb radio production read by John Shea; excerpts from a chamber opera, and a 24-page booklet that includes a reprint of the short story.
© Morning Call
Excerpt from Playbill 10/05: John Shea
Seldes, Naughton, Tucci, Shea and More Featured on "Selected Shorts: Timeless Classics" CD
By Ernio Hernandez 07 Oct 2005
Stage stars Marian Seldes, James Naughton, Maria Tucci, John Shea and more will appear on the upcoming album "Selected Shorts: Timeless Classics" of Symphony Space's series.
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"Selected Shorts: Timeless Classics," to be released Oct. 19, will feature Marian Seldes (Dedication, Dinner at Eight) providing her voice to Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," Maria Tucci (The Rose Tattoo, The Stendhal Syndrome) reading Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever," James Naughton voices Raymond Carver "Cathedral," John Shea (Down the Garden Paths, The Director) does D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner," Charles Keating (A Man of No Importance, Loot) on Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," Steven Gilborn (Principia Scriptoriae) reading Jack London's "Make Westing" and librettist-lyricist Isaiah Sheffer (Yiddle with a Fiddle) - who is also Symphony Space's artistic director - performing James Thurber's "The Night the Ghost Got In."
© Playbill
Excerpt from Newsday 6/6/03: John Shea
DRAMATIC READINGS.
John Shea reads "Like All Other Men," by John McGahern on "Selected Shorts," WNYC /820 AM at 3 p.m.
© Newsday
Excerpt from WNYC 2/8/04: John Shea & 8/14/05
Damaged Spirits
Sunday, February 08, 2004
The novelist Frank Conroy is also director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and hosted a Selected Shorts evening at Symphony Space which celebrated the work of his generations of students there. His friend, the wonderful regular leading man of this series, John Shea, agreed to come into New York from his home on Nantucket Island to read Conroy's own CAR GAMES.
© WNYC
Excerpt from WNYC 5/2/04: John Shea
Not of this World
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Simon J. Ortiz's "Men on the Moon" was chosen by Sherman Alexie when he hosted a program of SELECTED SHORTS at Symphony Space in 2001.
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"Men on the Moon" is read by a SHORTS regular, John Shea, whose many performance credits include the films Windy City, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, Catalina Trust, Missing and Nowhere To Go, as well as the TV movies A Will Of Their Own, HBO's The Impossible Sky, and the mini-series, Kennedy, His best-known television role was that of Lex Luthor on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and for SHORTS his sensitive readings have included Capote's "A Christmas Memory" and Will Weaver's "A Gravestone Made of Wheat."
© WNYC
Excerpt from WNYC 1/8/06 and 6/24/07: John Shea
Selected Shorts Afterglow: more Christmas memories.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Two emotional, and one light-hearted, Christmas tales make up this program. The first is one of Truman Capote’s celebrated Christmas memories, but not the more often anthologized “Christmas Memory.” This tender tale of “One Christmas” takes place in New Orleans, and is read by the actor who has made a specialty of Capote’s works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, John Shea.
© WNYC
Excerpt from Theater Mania 3/06: John Shea
Chalfant, Leonard, Seldes, Weaver, et al. Will Appear at Symphony Space in April
By Brian Scott Lipton • Mar 7, 2006 • New York City
Kathleen Chalfant, Oskar Eustis, Arthur French, Robert Sean Leonard, Marian Seldes, John Shea, and Sigourney Weaver are among the celebrities scheduled to appear at Symphony Space in April. Chalfant, Eustis, and Shea will participate in the "Selected Shorts" series on April 5, reading short stories by Ann Beattie, Tom Bissell, and Gloria DeVidas Kirchmeier; French, Leonard, and Seldes will participate in April 19 readings of work by Chinua Achebe, Etgar Keret, and Dubravka Ugresic.
© Theater Mania
Excerpt from New York Public Radio 3/26/06: John Shea | The Namesake
Perilous Memories
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Perilous memories in Ring Lardner's "Liberty Hall," read by Christina Pickles and Willa Cather's "The Namesake," read by John Shea. This program continues our broadcasts of selections from our programs read at The Mount, the home of Edith Wharton, in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshires.
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Reader John Shea has had recurring roles on Lois & Clark and Mutant X, with films The Insurgents and Framed wrapping this year.
© New York Public Radio
Excerpt from Broadway World 4/22/06: John Shea | Baseball!
Zaks, Hadary, Weaver and More Featured on Baseball CD Set
Saturday, April 22, 2006; Posted: 12:04 PM - by BWW News Desk
Symphony Space has assembled the fiction, essays and poetry on the game, recorded live in performance and broadcast on NPR, and as the 2006 baseball season begins, presents them all on the new 3-CD set "Selected Shorts: Baseball." As broadcast on National Public Radio, "Selected Shorts: Baseball!" features classic baseball stories and commentary by Roger Angell and by A. Bartlett Giammatti, the late, celebrated Commissioner of Baseball. The readers include the Tony-winning Broadway director and actor Jerry Zaks and the distinguished Broadway and Hollywood actors Jonathan Hadary, John Shea, Fritz Weaver, Arthur French, Jack Davidson, and Selected Shorts host Isaiah Sheffer.
The set will feature: John Updike's Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, read by Jack Davidson, about Ted Williams' miraculous Fenway farewell; Roger Angell's Game Six, read by the author; W.P. Kinsella's The Thrill of the Grass, read by John Shea, in which a true baseball fan starts a quiet revolt against artificial turf; Ken Kalfus' The Joy and Melancholy Baseball Trivia Quiz, a series about funny and charming vignettes about the importance of baseball in American life, read by Jack Davidson; T.C. Boyle's The Hector Quesadilla Story read by Jerry Zaks, and A. Bartlett Giamatti's The Green Fields of the Mind, an essay read by the author.
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Selected Shorts, now in its 22nd year, is one of radio's longest-running literary series, broadcast on National Public Radio stations nationwide. Selected Shorts on audiocassette and CD features 20 volumes of Broadway and Hollywood actors reading stories by established masters and bold new writers. These readings were recorded in front of a live audience in New York City.
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Tickets for Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th St.) performances are available by visiting the Symphony Space Box Office at Broadway and 95th Street, Tuesday-Sunday, Noon to 7 PM, by calling 212-864-5400, Tuesday-Sunday, 11 AM to 7 PM or on-line at www.symphonyspace.org. Symphony Space memberships, which entitle holders to extensive benefits, including reduced price admission to designated events, start at $60/year ($15/year for full-time students). For group sales call the box office at 212-864-5400. The recording is $28.00, available in fine book and music stores nationwide (distributed by Independent Publishers Group) or direct from Symphony Space: (212) 864-5400, online, or write to the Selected Shorts Order Department, c/o Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, New York, NY 10025; also available at the Symphony Space box office window at the same address.
© Broadway World
Excerpt from The Getty 5/5/06: John Shea
STARS OF THE STAGE AND SCREEN LEND VOICES TO STORIES ABOUT FOOD IN ACCLAIMED LITERARY SERIES
May 5, 2006
LOS ANGELES-This spring, the acclaimed literary series Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story returns to serve up a delicious menu of "Food Fictions," at the Getty Center from May 19-21, 2006. Produced by New York's Symphony Space, this year’s series features three performances by a stellar cast of actors reading classic and new short fiction about food and life, marking the 15th season that Selected Shorts has been presented by the J. Paul Getty Museum. John Lithgow, Shohreh Aghdashloo, René Auberjonois, Fionnula Flanagan, Jane Kaczmarek, Christina Pickles, Samantha Eggar, John Shea and Bradley Whitford are among this year’s lineup of notable talents. They will give voice to stories penned by Alice McDermott, Roald Dahl, Anton Chekhov, V.S. Pritchett, James Thurber, M.F.K. Fisher, Calvin Trillin, Kenneth Grahame, Jhumpa Lahiri, Laurie Colwin, and Damon Runyon. Selected Shorts' "Food Fictions" opens Friday, May 19, with a special reception and readings focused on the theme "Much Ado at Dinner." On Saturday, the attention turns to "Eating Out and Eating In," followed by "Delicious Escapades" on Sunday.
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All Selected Shorts programs take place in the Harold M. Williams Auditorium at the Getty Center. Tickets are $20 ($15 for students and seniors) except for opening night ($30 includes post-program Champagne reception). Tickets are available at the Museum Information Desk or by calling 310-440-7300. For more information, visit www.getty.edu.
© The Getty
Excerpt from New York Daily News 9/22/07: John Shea
Radio Dial: Going to bat for baseball
David Hinckley Saturday, September 22nd 2007, 4:00 AM
Since Jonathan Schwartz retired his annual "Salute to Baseball," which he used to do on Super Bowl Sunday every year, radio has needed a tip of the hat to the national pastime. Tomorrow it gets one, when "Selected Shorts" on WNYC (820 AM), 4-5 p.m., presents readings of baseball excerpts from six classy authors. These include John Shea reading from James T. Farrell's "My Grandmother Goes to Comiskey Park," Isaiah Sheffer reading from Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint," David Straithairn reading Rolfe Humphries' "Polo Grounds," Sheffer reading Yusef Komunyakaa's "Glory," Shea reading W.P. Kinsella's "The Thrill of the Grass" and the late Bart Giamatti reading his own "The Green Fields of the Mind."
© New York Daily News
Excerpt from WNYC 9/23/07: John Shea
Selected Shorts: Hits and misses in baseball and life
Sunday, September 23, 2007
SELECTED SHORTS went out to the ballgame a few seasons ago, up at The Mount, the home of Edith Wharton, up in Lenox Massachusetts in the Berkshire hills, with a program consisting of baseball stories and poems that have been collected in a handsome volume by Library of America, our partner along with The Mount in this summer literary adventure. From that program we begin this radio event with a Chicago White Sox memoir by the great American Chicago writer James T. Farrell, famous for the Studs Lonigan trio of novels. The title alone promises wry humor: “My Grandmother Goes to Comiskey Park.” Our reader was one of our clean-up hitters who had flown and driven across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from his home on Martha’s Vineyard for the occasion, John Shea.
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Yusef Komunyakaa, who teaches at Princeton, also finds something of life in baseball. Isaiah Sheffer read his poem, “Glory.” And for the fifth element of this compendious program, John Shea returns to the pitcher’s mound to read W.P. Kinsella’s whimsical fantasy “The Thrill of the Grass,” in which a cadre of old-timers attempt to return baseball to its days of honor and glory-by subverting the Astroturf.
© WNYC
Excerpt from Westport Now 1/16/07: John Shea & Stamford Plus 1/29/07
Playhouse Hosting “Selected Shorts”
Tazewell Thompson, actor John Shea and National Public Radio host Isaiah Sheffer will be the featured readers at the next edition of “Selected Shorts” at the playhouse on Tuesday, Jan. 30 at 7:30 p.m. “Selected Shorts”-which is sponsored by the Westport Arts Center and the playhouse-features readings of short fiction that will be taped for a future NPR broadcast. The program is heard locally on Saturdays at 3 p.m. on WSHU (FM 91.1). Thompson will read “The Sermon in the Guava Tree” by Kiran Desai, John Shea will read “Other Persons” by Juan Jose Millas and Isaiah Sheffer will lend his voice to “Man Goes to See a Doctor“ by Adam Gopnik.
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John Shea earned an Emmy Award for his work in the television movie “Baby M,” and is well known for his role as the evil Lex Luthor in the international hit series, “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” Other film credits include “The Adventures of Sebastian Cole,” “Catalina Trust,” “Missing” and “Nowhere to Go.” Shea has also appeared in the television movie, “A Will of Their Own,” HBO's “The Impossible Sky,” and the mini-series, “Kennedy,” starring Martin Sheen. On stage he has starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning hit, “How I Learned to Drive,” with Molly Ringwald. Shea also co-wrote and directed the independent film, “Southie,” which won the Jury Award for Best Independent Film at the 1998 Seattle International Film Festival.
© Westport Now & Stamford Plus
Village Soup 4/30/07: John Shea
NPR's Selected Shorts to come to Camden part of Camden Public Library's Arts & Lecture Series
By Bay Chamber Concerts
CAMDEN (April 30): The Camden Public Library will host the acclaimed Symphony Space program Selected Shorts to the stage of the Camden Opera House at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 6, 2007. Selected Shorts is heard across the country on National Public Radio and every Sunday at 7 p.m. on the radio stations of MPBN. Host Isaiah Sheffer will read pieces by Maine authors or with Maine themes along with actors Ted Marcoux and John Shea.
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John Shea will read "Once More to the Lake" by author E.B. White. White was born in Brooklin, Maine and wrote many of his most beloved novels from his farm in Maine. Members of his family remain in the Camden area. Shea is an accomplished stage and screen actor. His theatre work includes "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and "Yentl." His 45 films include the Academy Award-winning "Missing" and "Southie," which he co-wrote and directed. His television work includes a notable run as Lex Luthor on "Lois and Clark."
© Village Soup
Excerpt from San Francisco Chronicle 5/26/07: John Shea
RADIO HIGHLIGHTS
Saturday, May 26, 2007
8 p.m. KQED-FM (88.5): Selected Shorts. Patricia Kalember reads the fairy tale "The Gifts of the Magician" and John Shea reads the fairy tale "The Story of the Sham Prince or the Ambitious Tailor."
© San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpt from In the Wings 1/11/08: John Shea
Lower Hudson Valley well represented at Symphony Space bash
January 11 2008
I attended last night’s sold-out 30th-anniversary bash for Symphony Space - the community project that started with a Bach concert and turned into a world-class arts center - and saw a Who’s Who of Lower Hudson Valley showbiz folk. Each did his or her part to mark the big night, either reading stories or delivering poems or “newsflashes” chronicling Symphony Space’s unlikely rise from a decrepit old movie theater to the citadel of culture it is today:
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John Shea’s “Selected Shorts” presentation of Heinrich Boll’s “The Laugher,” about a man who laughs for a living but can’t do it in his home life;
© In The Wings
Excerpt from Public Broadcasting KUAR 7/9/08: John Shea | A Piece of Pie
Short stories about food, glorious food
by Isaiah Sheffer
This episode of "Selected Shorts" features three short stories about food with readers Shohreh Aghdashloo, Bradley Whitford, and John Shea.
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The final item on the menu is a classic by the American comic master Damon Runyon. "A Piece of Pie" chronicles an epic eating contest and is read by John Shea.
© PRI
Excerpt from WNYC 1/18/09: John Shea & WNYC 7/18/10: John Shea
Selected Shorts 1/18/09
The program begins with “The Seventh Man,” by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who was born in Kyoto in 1949, and has published many volumes of novels and short story collections. Many Murakami stories have a very hip, modern feel to them. But “The Seventh Man” begins with an old fashioned device--like something from one of Akira Kurosawa’s epic films: On a dark and stormy night, a group of men sit around a circle and tell their stories. The story that the seventh man tells is intimate, and awesome, as read by SHORTS regular John Shea, whose stage, film, and television credits include “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” "The Master and Margarita", "American Days", “Windy City,” “Lois & Clark,” and “Mutant X.”
© WNYC
Excerpt from The Getty 5/2/08: John Shea | The Creeping Siamese
Selected Shorts 2008: A Celebration of the Short Story
Join us for a mysterious weekend with Selected Shorts, as the celebrated series returns to the Getty Center with a dashing lineup of elegant crime tales and gritty, hardboiled detective stories.
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The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
Date: Friday, May 2, 2008
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Admission: Tickets $20; $15 students/seniors. Call (310) 440-7300 or use the "Get Tickets" button below to buy tickets online. This evening features classic stories from the twenties and thirties, the great age of pulp mystery magazines like Black Mask. "The Creeping Siamese" by Dashiell Hammett , read by John Shea (Gossip Girl, Lois & Clark)
© The Getty
Excerpt from WNYC 3/15/09: John Shea
Selected Shorts: Hard-boiled and Hard Tack
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Two classic adventure stories make up this program of SELECTED SHORTS. Dashiell Hammet’s tale, “The Creeping Siamese,” was first published in the pulp fiction magazine Black Mask in 1926, and was revived in a great reading by John Shea for an evening of crime stories at The Getty Center in Los Angeles.
© WNYC
Excerpt from Video on Plum TV 3/28/09: John Shea
Theatre Workshop of Nantucket: Meet John Shea, Artistic Director
March 28, 2009
John: I mean, financially things are tough all over the world. And it's true here as well, so I have a couple of like low-rent ideas that might be really fun. You know, I live in New York, so I'm part of two theater communities that do things for low-rent but are extremely exciting for audiences. And one of them is that at Symphony Space, up on 95th and Broadway, I read with some of the great actors in New York something called Selected Shorts, which goes out on National Public Radio. And we read onstage with a lectern in front of us, a short story to 800 people. But it's recorded, and then it goes out on National Public Radio. It goes out to millions of people over the country. So the people lie in bed at night and they listen to our stories. But they're the stories of Tennessee Williams.
Kate: Wonderful.
John: And John Updike, you know, Hemingway, and new young writers, and you know, all the great writers. And so I think it would be fantastic for the Theater Workshop, for example, to maybe join forces with the FNA, and there in the great hall sponsor a weekly series of short story readings.
Kate: What a great space.
© Plum TV
Excerpt from WNYC 6/21/09: John Shea | What Was Mine
Postcards from the Edge
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Ann Beattie’s work in fiction includes the novels The Chilly Scenes of Winter and The Doctor’s House, and her short story collections include The Burning House; Park City: New and Selected Stories.; and Follies: New Stories. She has been honored by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and is a recipient of a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form and the prestigious Rea Award for the Short Story (in 2005). Her poignant tale, “What Was Mine” (from Park City ,) calls into question what constitutes a family, and is read by regular SHORTS leading man John Shea. In this, as in many of the other stories Shea has read for us over the years, the point of view is that of a young boy just learning how the world works.
© WNYC
Excerpt from Theater Mania 10/12/09: John Shea
Pizzarelli, et al. Set for Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center
By: Tristan Fuge · Oct 12, 2009 · Berkshires
The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center has announced their fall and winter programming.
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Also on tap will be the Symphony Space's "Selected Shorts" production of Tales of Amazement: Surprising Stories from the World of Yiddish Literature (December 6), which will feature actors John Shea and Isaiah Sheffer.
© Theater Mania
WNYC 11/15/09: John Shea
Rebel Yiddish Writers: Unusual stories from Yiddish writers, and a contemporary take on Job.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The first two stories on this program were read at a SELECTED SHORTS live performance called “Rebel Yiddish Writers,” devoted to writers who rebelled against the traditional description of much of modern Yiddish literature-realistic, sentimental, and nostalgic elegies of the European shtetl and passions of the immigrant-filled Lower East Side. In contrast, the writer Moishe Nadir, whose story “My First Love,” begins the program, was a 1920s Greenwich Village bohemian who wore a French beret and smoked cigarettes in an ivory holder, set in his teeth at a rakish angle. Some of his modernist tales ventured into the surreal, like “The Man Who Slept Through the End of the World”, heard in an earlier SELECTED SHORTS season. “My First Love,” is more realistic, but also extravagant and playful, and is read by the Irish-American actor who originated the role of the yeshiva boy in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s play YENTL, John Shea.
© WNYC
Excerpt from Berkshire Eagle 12/5/09: John Shea
Selected Shorts turns craft to art
By Jeffrey Borak, Berkshire Eagle Staff Posted: 12/05/2009 08:50:40 AM EST
Sunday afternoon at 3, Selected Shorts comes to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in a program put together in collaboration with the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. Tony Award-winning actress Joanna Gleason, award-winning stage, television and film actor John Shea, and Sheffer will read stories by Yiddish writers Abraham Reisen and Isaac Bashevis Singer, and one non-Yiddish writer, Grace Paley, whose "The Loudest Voice" opens Sunday's program.
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Shea will follow with Reisen's "Tuition for the Rebbe," "a charming story, but also serious, that's a great read for John and which works well with the other material we're reading. We felt it would be a great menu item," Sheffer said by telephone from his office at Symphony Space, on Broadway at 95th Street.
© Berkshire Eagle
Excerpt from Theater Mania 4/6/10: John Shea
Stephen Colbert, Donna Murphy, Leonard Nimoy, B.D. Wong, et al. Set for Symphony Space's Isaiah Fest
By: Dan Bacalzo · Apr 6, 2010 · New York
Stephen Colbert, Jane Curtin, Jacques D'Amboise, Carmen De Lavallade, Fionnula Flanagan, Larry Keith, Stephen Lang, Jay Leonhardt, Malachy McCourt, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Lanny Meyers, Donna Murphy, James Naughton, Leonard Nimoy, Rochelle Oliver, Eleanor Reissa, Leenya Rideout, Marian Seldes, John Shea, Don Stephenson, Calvin Trillin, Fritz Weaver, and B.D. Wong will be among the performers for Isaiah Fest: An All-Star Salute to Isaiah Sheffer, to be held at Symphony Space on June 7 at 7:30pm. Naughton will direct, with musical direction by Lanny Meyers. The evening will honor Symphony Space's out-going artistic director and feature original songs and sketches by Martin Sage, Sheffer and others.
© Theater Mania
Excerpt from NYC Arts 6/7/10: John Shea
Isaiah Fest: an All-Star Salute to Isaiah Sheffer
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 7:30 pm - 11:59 pm
A monumental evening of entertainment, 32 years in the making, this all-star celebration salutes Isaiah Sheffer and his three decades of artistic leadership, featuring a fun-filled evening of songs, sketches, readings and more. Featuring: Ivy Austin, David Buskin, the Cast of the Thalia Follies, The Chalks, Stephen Colbert, Jane Curtin, Jacques d’Amboise, Carmen de Lavallade, Fionnula Flanagan, Larry Keith, Stephen Lang, Jay Leonhardt, Malachy McCourt, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Lanny Meyers, Donna Murphy, James Naughton, Leonard Nimoy, Rochelle Oliver, Eleanor Reissa, Leenya Rideout, Marian Seldes John Shea, Don Stephenson, Calvin Trillin, Fritz Weaver and B.D. Wong.
© NYC Arts
Excerpt from WNYC 6/20/10: John Shea
Richard Prince-Spiritual America
Three of the four works you’ll hear on this program were read at Symphony Space on an evening we put together in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum in connection with their retrospective exhibition of the works of the artist Richard Prince, “Richard Prince: Spiritual America”.
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Our second story is by Tim O’Brien, whose powerful fictions, based on his Vietnam War experiences, have been featured on a number of our programs, including a recent special celebrating the 20th anniversary of his collection The Things They Carried. In this short but compelling tale a father who is a Vietnam vet is asked by his child “Have you ever killed anyone?” “Ambush” is read by John Shea.
© WNYC
Post Star 6/3/11: John Shea
Veteran performer reflects on decades of 'Shorts'
DOUG GRUSE Posted: Friday, June 3, 2011 11:25 am
The joy of hearing a story read aloud doesn't have to end in elementary school. With "Selected Shorts," short works of fiction come alive through the vocal talent of some of America's top actors. "It has evolved into quite this thing for anybody who loves to read or hear a story read," said John Shea, who has been performing with the project since 1987. The hit public radio show, which is produced by Symphony Space in New York City, will present two performances this weekend at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls. Shea, a veteran actor who is best known for his portrayal of Lex Luther on the TV series "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," was hooked on the experience the first time he participated. "It was a very dramatic thing to be standing alone on this massive stage and having a microphone with only this manuscript on a music stand. The idea was to read the story and act it out, and I was amazed that people were spellbound," Shea said.
The brainchild of host Isaiah Sheffer, the popular series will offer up "Stories for a Summer's Night," which will be recorded for a future broadcast on National Public Radio, on Saturday and "Selected Shorts Classics" on Sunday. Shea, who will read during the Sunday matinee, has performed with the group at venues across the country. "You feel like and old vaudevillian actor, who is taking the show on the road," he said. "We are bringing this performance art to people who wouldn't ordinarily get to see it."
Shea will read W.P. Kinsella's "The Thrill of the Game," a story about a die-hard baseball fan who makes a plan to replace the artificial turf in his local stadium. "It's all about the rite of spring in America," he said. "I'm a baseball fan and a player. I've played ay Yankee Stadium three times with the Hollywood All-Stars. For me, it's about bringing that love."
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Although the actors are following a story, Shea said the performances require more than just reading skills. "I like to work on the story for a week before I show up. I score it like a musical score. I break it down to its elements. I want to find out what the intention of the writer is - every word is important," he said.
The process continues until the actual performance. "I work on it right up to the very moment I take the stage. Then I go for it and let the story take over," he said. "It's a little like baseball. I step up to the plate and just play ball."
© Post Star
Excerpt from West Side Rag 4/9/12: John Shea
FREE TITANIC “COURAGE AND COWARDICE” PREMIERE HIGHLIGHTS IMPRESSIVE WEEK OF UWS EVENTS
Posted on April 9, 2012 at 10:10 am by West Sider
Wednesday 7 p.m.
Selected Shorts: La Vie Boheme/Boho Brooklyn Performers: Martha Plimpton (Raising Hope), David Rakoff, Gbenga Akinnagbe (The Wire; Nurse Jackie), Sarah Steele (Please Give; Russian Transport), Kaneza Schaal (The Select;The Sound and the Fury), and John Shea. This evening pairs selections from Stein’s Paris - a chapter from Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, Gertrude Stein’s inventive rhythmic prose-poem about Picasso, Sylvia Beach’s tale of setting up shop in a Paris that welcomed artists of all kinds, and a James Baldwin essay about seeking peace and artistic freedom in the city of light. After intermission, the program presents tales from some of the most inventive young writers in Brooklyn, including the imaginative fabulist Helen Phillips (whose brand-new story is part of the Selected Shorts Commissioning Project), and Haley Tanner, whose sad, funny, true Vaclav and Lena is set in the Brighton Beach immigrant community. At Symphony Space. $27.
© West Side Rag
Excerpt from The Dedham Transcript 10/28/11: John Shea
Whack job vs. Smartie: Choose the smartie.
By Alexander Stevens Posted Oct 28, 2011 @ 11:32 AM
Stories: Have you heard “Selected Shorts” on your public radio station? Well, the Jewish Community Center in Newton is bringing a live version of the show to its stage on Oct. 29. The radio show presents stories that revolve around a theme, and the JCC show is similar. In “Wishes, Dreams and Insults: Rebel Jewish Writers,” actors Patricia Kalember and John Shea perform short stories by writers including Isaac Bashevis Singer, Grace Paley and Israeli author Etgar Keret. Kalember has appeared in movies such as “Rabbit Hole;” Shea played Lex Luthor on the 1990s TV show “Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman.” Shea squared off against Superman in this scene. Tickets: $24. Call: 866-811-4111.
© Wicked Local
Excerpt from Selected Shorts.org 11/15/12: John Shea
Radio Schedule
Take a look forward (or back, depending when you read this) at the schedule for the 2012-13 Selected Shorts season.
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11/15/12 - Paris Lives
“A Bookshop of My Own” and “Setting Up Shop” by Sylvia Beach, performed by Martha Plimpton
“No Name in the Street” (excerpt) by James Baldwin, performed by Gbenga Akinnagbe
“Hunger Was Good Discipline” by Ernest Hemingway, performed by John Shea
© Selected Shorts.org