Early Life
Shea was born in North Conway, New Hampshire, near where his father was teaching at Fryeburg Academy, Maine, and was raised in Springfield, Massachusetts in a family of five. His parents were Elizabeth Mary (née Fuller) and Dr. John Victor Shea, Jr., who served in the U.S. Army in World War II, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and was a teacher, coach and later assistant Superintendent of Schools. It was his mother who introduced him to literature, poetry, classical music, and art and urged him to study the piano; his father, a scholar-athlete at Bates College, taught him positive thinking and the values of the ancient Greek ideals of body, mind, and spirit.
Shea attended Catholic schools, graduating from Cathedral High School where he captained the varsity debate team and played varsity football and track. Shea received his early theatre training at Bates College under Lavinia Schaffer and Bill Beard. He also performed on the varsity debating and football teams and co-edited the college literary magazine, Puffed Wheat, before graduating with a BA in 1970. He studied acting and directing at the Yale School of Drama under Dean Robert Brustein, gaining an MFA in Directing in 1973. During his time at the School of Drama, he also performed at the Yale Repertory Theatre, in the Yale cabaret with schoolmates Joe Grifasi and Meryl Streep, and studied film with Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet at the Film School.
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