We recently connected with Shawn Shafner and have shared our conversation below.
Shawn, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?
I got my first gig when I was 5. It was 1988, and no one seemed concerned that a little Jewish boy was playing one of the princes in “The King & I” at the local dinner theater. I loved the attention, and I had a few feature bits where I got to be a bit naughty. For example, when the royal children were all filing in for roll call, my character came running in late and slid through the King’s legs. Right before the close of the first act, I would change into an itchy gold dress and sit cross-legged on a small cart. They’d wheel me out and I’d sit there, a resplendent Buddha, before the lights went down and the hydraulic stage lifted us all up to the dressing rooms. It was pure stage magic.
Almost 35 years later, and I’m still making a career in and adjacent to the theater. It’s still at the core of everything I do and who I am. It wasn’t just the attention, magic, music and pretending. It wasn’t just the forbidden thrill of make-up and glitzy costumes, and the camaraderie of the cast. It was also the paycheck.
I remember my parents taking me to a newly-opened children’s bank so I could open an account in which to keep my earnings. Being paid meant that I wasn’t just a performer: I was a professional. And it meant that this thing I’d willingly do just for joy was actually valuable. It was worth something to someone – potentially lots of people – and one could make a living doing it.
I continued to perform throughout my childhood, sometimes for money and often for free. The same could be said for my pursuits as an adult. Sometimes I love it so much, the pay doesn’t matter. But to do the work you love, AND be financially nourished by it? Nothing could be better.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Shawn Shafner. I’m a joyous, loving, thoughtful and creatively juicy human being, looking for like-minded folks to make fun and mayhem :)
I try to lead with my heart. Meanwhile, my brain is especially good at putting disparate elements together in new ways, seeing the big picture, strategizing, and getting people to take action. I love people, community, and am deeply curious about the Mystery that is this Life.
I’ve been a professional theater artist since I was five years old, and started working as an educator not long after, helping Kerry, my kindergarten bestie, learn to read. I still love to learn, help and share with all sorts of people, on stages big and small or cheering from the stands.
I’m most infamous for creating theater, documentary, podcasts and a book to normalize the doo-doo everyone does for the health of our bodies, planet and global communities. Check it out at The People’s Own Organic Power Project – www.thePOOPproject.org/ And I’m more than just a potty mouth.
These days, I’m interested in how the artist’s embodied toolbox can help individuals, communities and society at large. To that end, I work with private students and small classes on mindful creativity, incorporating meditation, singing practice, movement and writing exercises.
On the community-scale, I love to work with communities on interactive art projects for beautification, creative expression, advocacy and social change. You can also find me facilitating workshops for non-profits, helping teams to develop confidence, greater trust, and self-care practices.
Wanting to effect change on a larger scale, I’m also working more with governments and non-profits on communication campaigns, community engagement and public outreach. Apathy is too easy. Artists like me can help make positive change delicious, hopeful and irresistible.
But enough about me. What about you? Drop me a line and let’s talk: shawnshafner.com
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In 2011, I got myself a one-night-only gig at Dixon Place. Dixon is a fabulous venue in NYC’s lower east side, famous as a hub for works-in-progress. And boy, was I in progress.
I had been working on a show about poop for a year as part of my work as The POOP Project. It got a strong start, and then it pooted out. The director I had been working with told me he needed to step off and work on other projects. I told him that I had a new deadline for this Dixon show and was eager to move forward if he might reconsider. He gave me a hug, wished me luck, and said he’d be there to see the show.
The show was going to be a cooking show. I would bake small cupcakes on stage, and use the process as a metaphor for how NYC’s sewer system was made. At the end, the audience would eat this pink-frosted metaphorically excremental offering. Like you do!
For the next three months, I worked furiously. On the first fifteen minutes. Those fifteen minutes were honed. Manicured. Perfected. I learned a lot from a friend about how the baking might need to happen, and I fermented a ginger beer for people to drink.
But I never practiced the baking. And I never wrote the rest of the show.
Until the night before. I stayed up all night, writing. Frantically. In the morning, I went to teach. I came back home, packed all my supplies into a rolly bag, and took it on the subway to the show, the beer sloshing and spilling all along the way.
I got all my things set up and was barely ready to go by the show’s start time. And there was the director. Smiling lovingly in the front row.
The rest of the night was a blur. I went as fast as I could, just trying to get to the end. At the end, all my friends thanked me politely. The director hugged me and said, “Congratulations,” which is theater-speak for, “If you don’t have anything nice to say…”
I was so ashamed. So embarrassed. I spent the rest of the night on my bed, replaying every cringe-worthy moment and wallowing in guilt.
But in the morning, I got up. I looked for the lesson.
I’m forever grateful for that terrible performance. All my life until then, I had skated by with that process – think it through, and then blast it out in one night. This demonstrated for me beyond a doubt that, if I wanted to be effective and be able to tackle more ambitious projects, I needed to find other ways to work.
Time management challenges and procrastination can still arise for me, but now I know better how to work with them. They’re not an obstacle to my process, but a part of my process.
Fail better. Fail different. Keep going. Keep growing.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The only full time job I’ve ever had was a national tour of a Nickelodeon show. Or when I’ve taught theater at summer camps for two to eight weeks. There are worse things, right?
I remember going on a date with a lawyer who hated his job. Instead of having job satisfaction – which is basically life satisfaction, right? We spend 80,000 of our life’s hours at work. That’s a lot of time to be doing something one doesn’t enjoy! Instead, he had nice shoes. He had vacations to Barbados peppered with cocktails and occasional emergency meetings.
Or the executive I knew whose strenuous job afforded her an apartment bordering Central Park. She worked so hard and at such long hours, she was seldom home to enjoy it.
I have never made very much money. I’m lucky if I crest $40k before taxes. But I’ve traveled the world. I’ve done work I find meaningful. I’ve kept my time to take walks, cook, and work on creative passion projects that nourish my soul if not my wallet.
Money can buy lots of things. Time is what’s valuable to me. How will you spend yours?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ShawnShafner.com
- Instagram: @shawncanshare
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shawn.shafner
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-shafner-922a4a2/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sbshtner
Image Credits
Bridget Badore, Elise Lesser, Basil Rodericks, Caitlin Ruttle, Jay Belsky