Ed Shea News

Theater for the New City's Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, which had to be presented virtually last year, returns May 28-30, 2021 as an indoor and outdoor live audience event with an emphasis on safety.

The Hanover Theatre is pleased to announce a $250,000 grant from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation in support of the expansion of the theatre and its Conservatory for the Performing Arts. This work is a key part of the revitalization of downtown Worcester and a catalyst for economic development in the area.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis opens their season with an amazing bit of brilliance called THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME, adapted from the novel by Mark Haddon by playwright Simon Stephens. It's a story filled with marvelous touches that plunges you into a world filtered through the view of a fifteen year old boy who is dealing with what we might perceive as a kind of autism, with aspects of Asperger syndrome, among other personality traits. In fact, it's never truly specified as such. But the story itself is really a mystery, and one that, when solved, only produces further inquiry. It's a superbly acted, imaginatively staged tale, that will engage, stun, and delight you. It's a must-see experience on every level!

Ask any New York Mets fan and they'll tell you that one of the unique quirks about watching a game at the teams' Flushing home - be it the now-demolished Shea Stadium or the current Citi Field - is the frequent rumbling of planes coming in and out of LaGuardia airport.

Second Generation Theatre presents the regional premiere of "THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA" at the Lancaster Opera House  June 2-18th.

'ART' has come to Rhode Island in a very entertaing production. Hey, what is art, and why are your friends your friends?

Art by Yasmina Reza is running tonight, April 21, through May 21 at 2nd Story Theatre. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

SEASCAPE, Edward Albee's 1975 Pulitzer Prize-winning comic-drama is getting a very entertaining production at Warren's 2nd Story Theatre. SEASCAPE is a quirky, compelling examination of the meaning of life, how we got, and where we go, from here. On a deserted beach, an older couple (Ed Shea and Susan Bowen Powers) encounters two humanesque sea creatures (Valerie Westgate and Charles Lafond) contemplating the evolutionary leap to dry land. Ironically, it's the human couple, for whom existence has grown flat and routine, who holds the answers to the inquisitive amphibians' naive yet probing questions, which in turn helps the humans answer their own. If I have neglected to say so thus far, this thing is hilarious.

Seascape by Edward Albee is running January 13 - February 5, 2017 at 2nd Story Theatre. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

The cast of SHEAR MADNESS joined the Off-Broadway League in recognizing the needs of the less fortunate this holiday season - particularly imperiled children - and collected toys and games for the OFF BROADWAY TOY DRIVE.

With PRELUDE TO A KISS, the current offering at 2nd Story Theatre in Warren, RI, playwright Craig Lucas came up with a realistically magical take on the Hollywood formula, boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl back. Apparently this theme predates even Hollywood: on the way home from the theater I listened to Monteverdi's seventeenth century opera, L'Orfeo, based on the even older story of Orpheus, in which boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, but oops. In this PRELUDE TO A KISS, which 2nd Story bills as a modern day fairy tale, elderly 'wedding crasher' (F. William Oakes) kisses the bride, Rita, (Lara Hakeem) and their souls exchange, which turns a perfect wedding into a white-knuckled flight of doubt and regret. All this leaves the brave but bewildered groom, Peter, (David Sackel) to reverse the curse armed only with the power of love and, eventually, the assistance of the persona-switched bride and crasher. Got all that?

Schneider Development announced its plans to overhaul the currently vacant and underutilized Shea's Seneca property located at 2178 Seneca Street at the intersection of Cazenovia Street.

First of all, I was supposed to write a review last month of Charles Morey's adaptation THE LADIES MAN by Georges Feydeau. Unfortunately, the elevator was out of service and, since I get around in a wheelchair, so was I. I finally got to see it the night it closed; It was the night of the full Hunter's Moon, and Warren was hopping-every restaurant we passed was packed. My wife and I had a light dinner around the corner from the theater at the Square Peg. The joint was jumping and deservedly so. Then it was on to THE LADIES MAN, and it was a hoot; Ed Shea was hilarious; the whole production rocked. I still laugh once in a while at some of the goings on.

Just in time for the election, the REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY returns with a new show featuring 600 years of history in 6,000 seconds!

THE LADIES MAN by Charles Morey, translated and adapted from Talleur Pour Dames by Georges Feydeau, will run September 23 - October 16 at UpStage at 2nd Story Theatre. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Just in time for the election, the REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY returns with a new show featuring 600 years of history in 6,000 seconds!

The Board of Trustees of the Shea's-O'Connell Preservation Guild Ltd. is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael G. Murphy as the new President of Shea's Performing Arts Center to succeed Anthony Conte. 

In keeping with Artistic Director Ed Shea's avowed goal of staging less cynical plays, 2nd Story Theatre in Warren is offering the stage version of the 1971 cult film classic HAROLD AND MAUDE by Colin Higgins, who wrote both the screenplay and this stage version, If you have never seen the film version, which starred Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort, you should get yourself over to Warren; if you have seen the film, you might want to go by a ticket to see what director Kevin Broccoli hath wrought. This production features some fine performances, a couple of almost magical special effects, and a story that is so dated it's current again. As Maude, charmingly played by Isabel O'Donnell, explains to Evan Kinnane's Harold in the second act, 'A cliche today is a profound truth tomorrow, and vice versa.' Somebody say, 'Amen.'

Either late last winter or early spring, 2nd Story theatre's Artistic Director, Ed Shea, announced that he was looking for less cynicism and revamped the schedule. Out went SPEED THE PLOW and in came CATHOLIC SCHOOL GIRLS. In Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom's adaptation of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE (based Albom's book), Shea has struck the mother lode of positivity. In this play (and in the book, and in life) Mitch (Jeff Del Sisto) a young, career-driven journalist learns of his former professor Morrie's (Jay Burke) battle with Lou Gehrig's disease and a one-time visit becomes a weekly pilgrimage and a graduate seminar on the meaning of life and death. The book has sold over fourteen million copies and been translated into fourteen languages. Cynical it is not. The question is, how does into translate onto the stage?

EDUCATING RITA by Willy Russell is running at 2nd Story Theatre at 28 Market St. in Warren until May 22. Ed Shea plays Frank, the jaded, just-this-side-of washed-out, alcoholic professor; and Tammy Brown plays Rita, a hairdresser who wants more out of life, who wants not simply a change in circumstances, but, as she says twice in the play, 'the change in yourself.' Rita wants to know, 'what's it like to be free?' If Frank ever knew, he has forgotten. Over the course of the very enjoyable two hours, they each get to look at what they know and to decide what must stay and what has to go. This play reminds you of Shaw's Pygmalion: the young woman comes to the older man seeking knowledge that can transform her life. Henry Higgins is more confidant then Frank in the value of what he has to offer, but Rita, whose real name turns out to be Susan, is every bit as convinced of its worth as Eliza Doolittle ever was.