Claudia Shear (born September 12, 1962) is an American

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

. She was nominated for the

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual c ...

, Best Play and Best Actress for her play '' Dirty Blonde''.

Early life

Shear was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

on September 12, 1962, to Julian "Bud" and Helaine Catoggio. Her mother was a glamorous executive in the cosmetic industry, a talented amateur painter and collector of antiques. Her father, who was a

Deputy Chief Chief Deputy is a rank/title used in American/Canadian law enforcement. The position of chief deputy is primarily found within sheriff's offices throughout the United States, and also exists for marshals’ police departments as well as constables ...

"Ranks of the FDNY" wikipedia.com, accessed April 24, 2016 in the

New York City Fire Department The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), is an American department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection services, technical rescue/special operations services, ...

at the time of her birth,"Julian D. Shear Obituary in the Sun Sentinel"
sun-sentinel.com, accessed April 24, 2016 left her mother and her older sister Diane, soon after she was born
encyclopedia.com, accessed April 24, 2016 She attended the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...

."Claudia Shear Overview"
tcm.com, accessed May 3, 2015

Career

Shear came to prominence with her self-penned solo performance piece ''Blown Sideways Through Life'' (described by

Frank Rich Frank Hart Rich Jr. (born 1949) is an American essayist and liberal op-ed columnist, who held various positions within ''The New York Times'' from 1980 to 2011. He has also produced television series and documentaries for HBO. Rich is curren ...

as an "autobiographical monologue"). The show premiered at the

New York Theatre Workshop __NOTOC__ New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is an Off-Broadway theatre noted for its productions of new works. Located at 79 East 4th Street between Second Avenue and Bowery in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it hou ...

in September 1993. The show then opened at the

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer th ...

Cherry Lane Theatre The Cherry Lane Theatre is the oldest continuously running off-Broadway theater in New York City. The theater is located at 38 Commerce Street between Barrow and Bedford Streets in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, ...

on January 7, 1994, closing on July 17, 1994, after 221 performances." ''Blown Sideways Through Life'' Listing"
lortel.org, accessed May 3, 2015 Shear won an

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the ...

, Special Citation and a 1994

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. F ...

nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance. Shear's employment experiences as a member of the American work force - sixty-four jobs in all, including

pastry chef A pastry chef or pâtissier (; the French female version of the word is pâtissière ), is a station chef in a professional kitchen, skilled in the making of pastries, desserts, breads and other baked goods. They are employed in large hotels, bi ...

, nude model,

waitress Waiting staff (British English), waitstaff (North American English), waiters (male) / waitresses (female), or servers (North American English), are those who work at a restaurant, a diner, or a bar and sometimes in private homes, attending ...

whorehouse A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...

receptionist A receptionist is an employee taking an office or administrative support position. The work is usually performed in a waiting area such as a lobby or front office desk of an organization or business. The title ''receptionist'' is attributed t ...

proofreader Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or an electronic copy of a publication to find and correct reproduction errors of text or art. Proofreading is the final step in the editorial cycle before publication. Professional Traditiona ...

, and

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translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

- provided her a wealth of material for her piece. She adapted it for a 1995 presentation on the PBS series ''

American Playhouse ''American Playhouse'' is an American anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Overview It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever an ...

''. Shear wrote the play '' Dirty Blonde'', her exploration of the life and career of

Mae West Mae West (born Mary Jane West; August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American stage and film actress, playwright, screenwriter, singer, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned over seven decades. She was known for her breezy ...

. The play premiered Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop, running from January 10, 2000, to February 13, 2000 and then opened on Broadway at the

Helen Hayes Theatre The Hayes Theater (formerly the Little Theatre, New York Times Hall, Winthrop Ames Theatre, and Helen Hayes Theatre) is a Broadway theater at 240 West 44th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Named for actres ...

on April 14, 2000 (previews); both productions were directed by

James Lapine James Elliot Lapine (born January 10, 1949) is an American stage director, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for ''Into the Woods'', '' Falsettos'', and '' Passion''. He ...

. She earned Tony and

nominations for both Best Play and Best Actress and won the

Theatre World Award The Theatre World Award is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or Off-Broadway. It was first awarded for the 1945–1946 theatre se ...

. Shear's acting credits include the films '' It Could Happen to You'' (1994) and '' Living Out Loud'' (1998) and a guest appearance as "fake Monica" on the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

'' Friends'' in 1995. She has also written for such publications as ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', ''

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'', and ''

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'', among others. ''Restoration,'' a new play written by her, premiered in June 2009 at

La Jolla Playhouse La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. History La Jolla Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer. In 1983, it was revived under ...

La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood within the city of San Diego, California, United States, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. La Jolla is surrounded on ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director

Christopher Ashley Christopher Ashley (born July 6, 1964) is an American stage director. Since 2007, he has been the artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse. Career Ashley graduated from Yale University in 1986, with a Bachelor of Art in Theatre.

after an idea by Shear. In ''Restoration'', Shear plays "Giulia, a down-on-her-luck art restorer from

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

who receives what could possibly be a career-reviving job of 'refreshing' Michelangelo’s

David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

in time for its quincentennial celebration in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

."Hernandez, Ernio
"Off-Broadway Cast Complete for Claudia Shear's 'Restoration' at NYTW"
playbill.com, April 9, 2010 Christopher Ashley, who staged the world premiere of ''Restoration'' at La Jolla Playhouse, directed the work for its New York debut. The play premiered Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on April 30, 2010 (previews) and officially on May 19, 2010, through June 13, 2010. Shear appeared in the Broadway play by Michele Lowe, ''

The Smell of the Kill ''The Smell of the Kill'' is a play by Michele Lowe that premiered at Cleveland Play House in 1999.
Cleveland Play ...

'', which had a brief run of 40 performances in 2002. Shear co-wrote the book for the new musical based on the book ''

Tuck Everlasting ''Tuck Everlasting'' is an American children's novel about immortality written by Natalie Babbitt and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1975. It has sold over 5 million copies and has been called a classic of modern children's literature ...

'', also titled ''

''. The music and lyrics are written by Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen with direction by

Casey Nicholaw Casey Nicholaw (born October 6, 1962) is an American theatre director, choreographer, and performer. He has been nominated for several Tony Awards for his work directing and choreographing ''The Drowsy Chaperone'' (2006), ''The Book of Mormon'' (2 ...

. The musical premiered at the

Alliance Theatre The Alliance Theatre is a theater company in Atlanta, Georgia, based at the Alliance Theatre, part of the Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, and is the winner of the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award. The company, originally the Atlanta Municipal T ...

, Atlanta, from January 21, 2015, to February 22, 2015. The musical opened on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

in previews on March 31, 2016, and officially in April 2016.Viagas, Robert
" 'Tuck Everlasting' Opens on Broadway Tonight"
playbill.com, April 26, 2016. In 2017 she starred in EVENING AT THE TALKHOUSE, written by Wallace Shawn, with Matthew Broderick at The New Group at the Signature Theatre in New York City.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

*
Claudia Shear
at

Internet Off-Broadway Database The Internet Off-Broadway Database (IOBDB), also formerly known as the Lortel Archives, is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway. The IOBDB was funded and developed by the non-profit Lucille Lortel Foundatio ...

Salon.com interview

BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shear, Claudia 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights American stage actresses American film actresses American television actresses Actresses from New York City Writers from Brooklyn Living people 1962 births American women dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American actresses 21st-century American women writers City University of New York alumni Theatre World Award winners