For Immediate Release:

January 1997

Janet Shea To Star As Lillian At Southern Rep

Janet Shea will portray Lillian Hellman in the one-woman William Luce play Lillian set to open at the Southern Repertory Theatre on the third level of Canal Place on February 21, 1997. The play, which will be directed by David Hoover of the University of New Orleans, will run through March 2.

Since being cast...in The Birds as a teenager 40 years ago, Janet has worked in virtually every theater in town: Le Petit Theatre Du Vieux Carre, Gallery Circle Theatre, the Beverly Dinner Playhouse, Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre, Southern Repertory Theatre, the Contemporary Arts Center, Tulane Center Stage, the Bayou Dinner Theatre, the Rose Dinner Theatre, Minacapelli's Dinner Theatre, Rivertown Repertory Theatre, Loyola University, Tulane Summer Shakespeare Festival, Dog & Pony Theatre Company, the Camelot Dinner Theatre, Theatre Marigny, and others, including independent productions. She has performed in Paris and Moscow on tour during her seven seasons with Southern Rep. She has also been a leading force in the Actors Equity Association here.

More importantly, no theatrical career in New Orleans in that time has been as varied or as versatile. Janet has played dramatic roles such as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Mary Tyrone in Long Days Journey Into Night, Princess in Sweet Bird Of Youth, Birdie in The Little Foxes, Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, Ester in The Price, Agnes in The Fourposter, and Emily Dickinson in another William Luce one-woman play The Belle Of Amherst. She has also played leading roles in such comedies as The New Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, The Ritz, Hay Fever, My Fat Friend, The Diaries Of Adam And Eve, Ladies At The Alamo, Rain, Some Fish, No Elephants, and The Merry Wives Of Windsor. To complete the triple threat, she has starred in musical roles including Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, A...My Name Is Alice, 42nd Street, Follies, Chicago, On The Town, and the title role in Mame.

She has appeared feature films such as Blaze with Paul Newman and The Adventures Of Huck Finn with Jason Robards. Her television roles have ranged from Sr. Stanislaus, the foundress of Charity Hospital, in WLAE-TV's production of Charity's Daughter to Mrs. Fetish in the Morgus series.

Janet has studied at Dominican College, the University of New Orleans, the British Academy of Dramatic Art at Oxford, and the International Film Studio in Rockport, Maine. She is a teacher and now teaches at the New Orleans Center For Creative Arts. Janet has also directed such plays as The Mask Of Hiroshima, Three Women, Riders To The Sea, and, most recently, The Marriage Of Bette And Boo.

MPC