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BY BRIAN C. JONES
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After a wide-ranging career as an actor —12 years at the Trinity Repertory Company, a stint off-Broadway in New York City, a role in a Hollywood sitcom (the name of which slips his memory) — Ed Shea is back where he began: running a tiny theater over a restaurant. At age 19, after graduating from Portsmouth High School, Shea co-founded the 2nd Story Theatre, first above a Newport restaurant, and later in a Providence school basement. Now 45, Shea has resurrected 2nd Story, this time in Warren. But now, 2nd Story owns its building, including the restaurant below, The Downstairs, which Shea hopes will help make the 100-seat upstairs space more viable both as a training center for actors and a place for intimate, innovative theater. Q: How did you come to the third incarnation of 2nd story and why? A: I spent a year [in Los Angeles] smoking and drinking coffee and reading about books about acting . . . And I was reading about [Lee] Strasberg [of The Actors Studio]. I specifically remember the night, on my fifteenth cigarette or something, I said to myself . . . wouldn’t it have been nice to be part of that kind of studio, starting something like that. And I said: " I can start one. " And I was also keenly aware that what we did at 2nd Story in Newport was never duplicated in this state . . . and I said: " That’s my mission, that’s what I’m supposed to do. " So I came back. Q: So how did you find this theater? You had been to Paris, New York, to LA, and then to Warren. Isn’t Warren an in-between place, like Middletown or North Smithfield? A: It was a complete fluke. I’ve always liked Warren. I grew up in Portsmouth, but I’ve always thought this was a really kind of funky town. A lot of towns, like the ones you’ve just mentioned, I’m not sure theater would go — one goes here. You know, there’s something gritty about this town, it’s an urban feel to this town. I love this place, there’s something just a little bit kind of screwy, it’s unprecious . . . I talked to Alan Crisman, who is director of economic development around here, and he set up this first meeting with Ernie Mayo, who owned the place . . . . Ernie Mayo really didn’t want to be there, you know . . . he didn’t want to open it up. But he got up there, up the backstairs, one set of keys, it was like Shakespeare, the gatekeeper in Macbeth: Open the door, and go in and look around, and I was amazed — this space is huge. I said: " Well, how much would the rent be? He said: " How about six months free? " Q: You didn’t really have much money to start up? A: No, I had to use the credit card. There was a little bit of money left in the 2nd Story’s Theatre’s account, because Pat [Hegnauer, a co-founder of the original theater] had done a couple of things with 2nd Story over the years, too, so there was a little bit — I think there was like 4000 bucks in there or something. Q: Who are the actors? A: We’ve got people who have always wanted to do this and never did it. One of the things I love about that place is that any given time I’ve got — one of my favorite actors here is a psychiatrist from the staff of Rhode Island Hospital — I’ve got glassblowers, jewelry makers, I’ve got social workers, teachers, dentists, you know, and it’s people who bring a lot of different experience to the table. Q: Do they get paid? A: Well, it’s all volunteer at this point. But that’s going to change next fall . . . . They won’t ever get a living wage — a living wage is relative anyway — but they will get some kind of stipend, so it doesn’t cost them anything to do a production. Because right now, you have to pay a babysitter, and transportation, you know, it’s a day off now here or there, when we have to pull something together during the day. I am paid and Lynne [Collinson] is paid as the general manager right now. And if I get somebody in there to do some carpentry or something like that. But as far as actors go, no . . . I am not taking a bunch of actors, who act in different styles, and putting them on stage together for a little while. These are people who all are beginning to think one way and believe one way of acting. It’s more like a church sometimes, that place, than it is like a theater. It’s a place where people share a common experience, care about each other, nurture each other’s growth, are there for each other in personal ways and professional ways. Q: Why did you start off, three years ago, with series of one-act plays called Short Attention Span Theatre? A: It has helped to build an audience that I have always wanted. The dream of a popular theater has been an elusive dream to a lot of artistic directors, [the idea of] a place that all differences classes and backgrounds can come in. And the Short Attention Span did that. It’s kind of a great leveler, in that its irreverence and its kind of nod to the fact that theater can be a little too pretentious, precious, academic, rigid. [It] appeals to both people who never go to the theater, and people who always go to the theater. Q: But it’s not the Boston Pops or Theater Lite? A: No, it’s not at all. And a lot of it is by playwrights — it’s really serious stuff. But I never do an all-serious night. I’ve done all-funny nights. But even the funny stuff can be pretty heady or meaningful. There are so many advantages for Short Attention Span Theatre. One is that you always walk away liking a couple of them: " I didn’t like that one. That one was too long. " Part of the conversation afterwards is, " Which one did you like? " Q: But now you are starting full-length plays? A: I’m going in the direction that people want, you know. I heard grumblings of people wanting full-length plays . . . the board of directors wanted to do it, the actors wanted to do it, so last year I did Lady Windermere’s Fan, Death of a Salesman, Betty’s Summer Vacation. The feeling still exists in the room of irreverence, and relaxedness, and lack of an academic approach. And those people who would never go — those people are starting to come to see full length-plays now . . . . We’ll get people to come see Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance that would never have come to see it. Q: Why did you want to open your own restaurant downstairs? A: I want the restaurant to make more money than the theater, because I want it to carry the burden of supporting that building. And if it does, I’m going to be able to put some money . . . into productions, the growth of the art, and provide money to pay actors. Q: The restaurant will pay the building costs, the mortgage? A: Hopefully, it will. Whatever the restaurant pays will support that building. And if it does start to make great profit, it will go into restoring the building . . . and eventually, if it does, so that it gets more money from it, that’s all the better, because then I can also keep the ticket prices low. Q: How many seats do you have in the theater? A: We cover about 100. Q: How many performances are sold out? A: Again, it depends on the play . . . . In the summer it’s different. The winter is a better time for us, the fall and the winter. The summer — it’s because we are not air-conditioned. If we were air-conditioned, we’d be sold out all the time. We are working toward that. It’s still very good . . . . I think we can safely say we’ve been operating at 85 percent capacity, which is huge. Q: Why should you have small theaters, when you can have a stadium, Trinity Rep, or something on DVD? What’s the point? A: The point is that the experience of theater, in an intimate environment like that, you can’t get at Trinity, you can’t get at PPAC [the Providence Performing Arts Center] . . . The limited number of people adds something to it. It’s something to the whole ephemerality — the whole kind of specialness of the experience — to have it that small. If you look around that room . . . the way it’s set up, you do, by the end of two hours, know somebody across the room. You’ve watched somebody who spent his life in business wipe a tear out of his eye at Death of Salesman, and you are moved by that, and you know him, as a result of that. You are not sitting and looking at the back of his head. He’s a part of the experience. Q: Do you direct the plays? A: All of them. Pat’s directed a couple of short plays last summer. But since I’ve started this, I’ve directed 81 one-acts and, I think, four [or] five-full length plays. Q: In a previous interview, you said you produce so you could continue acting. Don’t you miss acting now? A: Once I mastered the craft of acting, I could continue to do it in a masterful way, or I can teach what I learned. And it was my duty, because I am a teacher by nature . . . it’s where my focus is now . . . . I don’t ask people to act the way that I would act in a play. I get them to act the way that they would, to bring as much of themselves to the role as possible . . . and delight in watching them do things that are totally unique to them and I could never do. Q: So when you were sitting out in LA, did you imagine in short period of time you’d have a theater running at 85 percent capacity, with a restaurant below? A: I didn’t figure any of this. And I won’t take credit for it. You could look at this thing and say, " Jesus, he’s a genius, you know. " But I’m not. I’m just doing it. I’m just doing what has to be done, just putting one foot in front of another. I’m testing the water as I’m doing it. If it’s too hot, too cold, I pull out for little while I make it the right temperature. I go right back in . . . . And if this place makes a bundle, I’m not going to add another wing onto the house, buy a faster car. If it makes money, I’m going to put it back into the place, just like any good nonprofit boy would do. It’s what I do, it’s what I do. This whole thing has just been, as I said, the most difficult and effortless thing I have ever done.
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