“The Shot is an incredible achievement and unforgettable theatre.”
Emmy-nominated actress Sharon Lawrence stars in what has been described as “A luminescent performance informing us that sexual and psychological abuse knows no boundaries of economy or class or fame.”
Lawrence is fearless as she shows Katharine’s emotional roller-coaster, from the peak of joyful love and family life to the dark canyons of despair. Katharine’s ultimate triumph is complicated by questions of love and duty that will surprise many who have not known intimate partner violence. “The Shot” is a story for this moment. If we can be abused, we can be paid less, denied opportunity and choice over our own bodies. “The Shot” is meant to empower women who are abused, and enlarge our understanding of an abused woman’s soul.
PLAY DEVELOPMENT
The Shot was developed at The Ojai Playwrights Conference and was set for its first public reading in Los Angeles at the Wilshire Ebell in March of 2020 when COVID hit, shutting down the performance. (This staged reading was performed in April 2022) During the ensuing months of 2020, the creative team continued working on the script and produced a video reading of The Shot, starring Sharon Lawrence. The video was offered during the pandemic to theaters and domestic violence organizations to use as a fundraiser. Those events raised more than $25,000 for the participating non- profits.
With the return of live performance, the creative team gathered in October 2021 for a week of developmental work on the play, which culminated in three workshop performances at Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara, CA. From there The Shot traveled to the Berkshires and Great Barrington Public Stage for five sold-out performances in June, 2022. In November of 2022, The Shot was performed as part of the United Solo Theater Festival at Theatre Row where it won the top awards: 2022 Winner of Audience Choice, Best Production and Best Actress awards.
In April, 2023 The Shot had a sold-out three-week run at the New Jersey Repertory Theater.
Bios
THE CREATIVE TEAM
The dynamic trio that put this production together, share years of amazing experience.
Sharon Lawrence is currently starring in the Paramount+ series JOE PICKETT based on the best seller of the same name. Previously she starred opposite Kirsten Dunst in the Showtime series ON BECOMING A GOD IN CENTRAL FLORIDA, and as an elusive librarian in HOME BEFORE DARK for Apple TV. Many recurring roles include REBEL with Katy Sagal and Andy Garcia, a serial killer in CBS’s CRIMINAL MINDS, Fiona’s acerbic boss on Showtime’s SHAMELESS, Sam Elliott’s love interest in THE RANCH, and in the critically acclaimed series QUEEN SUGAR produced by Ava DuVernay. Sharon continues to be recognized from her multiple Emmy® nominated and SAG Award-winning portrayal of ADA Sylvia Costas Sipowitz in the ground breaking NYPD BLUE and as Izzy’s tender but ditzy Mom on GREY’S ANATOMY (for which she earned her 4th EMMY® nod). Her 5th EMMY® nomination came in 2021 as Lead Actress in a digital series -THE GAZE www.thegazeseries.com. Film work includes THE LOST HUSBAND with Leslie Bibb and Josh Duhamel, OF MIND AND MUSIC with Anjeannue Ellis and and the indie hit MIDDLE OF NOWHERE directed by Ava DuVernay. An accomplished stage actress, and 2012 Lunt-Fontane Ten Chimneys Fellow, Sharon appeared in the West Coast premiere of A KID LIKE JAKE directed by Jennifer Chambers. LA theatre credits includes her acclaimed performance in THE MYSTERY OF LOVE AND SEX at the Mark Taper Forum, playing twenty different women in the LOVE, NOEL cabaret at The Wallis, at the Pasadena Playhouse she starred in Noel Coward’s final play A SONG AT TWILIGHT and as Vivian Leigh in ORSON’S SHADOW for which she was nominated for an Ovation Award, and won the LA Drama Critics Circle Award. She was part of a rotating cast in Nora & Delia Ephron’s LOVE, LOSS & WHAT I WORE, and starred opposite Cherry Jones in TONGUE OF A BIRD at the Public Theatre. Sharon created the role of Maureen in the premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s POOR BEHAVIOR at the Mark Taper Forum and her last Broadway appearance was as Velma Kelly in CHICAGO.
THE SHOT, Robin’s first play, was selected for the 2017 Ojai Playwrights Conference. Robin, a Washington, D.C. lawyer worked on Capitol Hill for a legendary leader of the House of Representatives, before leaving to be a union lobbyist during the Clinton years. Robin’s post-politics writing life includes: The bestselling advice book, Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way (Penguin), Katharine Graham (Penguin), Barbie and Ruth, about the founder of Mattel (HarperCollins and under option with Bold Films), and the novel Eleanor vs. Ike, which imagines Eleanor Roosevelt running for President in 1952 (HarperAvon). Robin has toured the professional speaking circuit, motivating audiences at many Fortune 500 companies with stories from the lives of great women leaders. She has also appeared as a guest historian for the Biography and History channels and as a featured historian on the CNN documentary series FIRST LADIES speaking about Eleanor Roosevelt.
Michelle is a true hyphenate: An actor, writer, director and dramaturg raised in western Massachusetts, and recently transplanted back to The Berkshires after a stint in New York and London, as well as a few decades in Los Angeles.
Last season she starred in THE APPROACH at Shakespeare and Co. (U.S. premiere, nominee Best Ensemble), and directed THE SHOT with Sharon Lawrence at Great Barrington Public Theatre (nominee Best new play, Best solo performance) and also at The United Solo Festival, Theatre Row, NYC (Winner Best production, Audience Favorite, Best performance, Best lighting design). She helmed this show at The New Jersey Rep this spring in a heralded sold out run.
She wrote and performed in SHE/HER at PS21 (Chatham, NY 2021) and also at The Assembly Rooms at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in a heralded “must see” production in 2022.
At Shakespeare and Co. she was the co-director (with Tina Packer) of THE WAVERLY GALLERY and directed WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND UNAFRAID as well as acting in CAROLINE IN JERSEY in the Winter Studio Festival of Plays, among others. She has also co-created and directed, with Allyn Burrows, THE VALENTINE SHOW for the past three seasons.
She directed QUEEN OF THE SEA at The Great Barrington Public Theater New Play Series (2021), as well as BLIND DATE in The Radius Festival (Berkshire Playwrights Lab) and acted in ANOTHER PART OF THE WOOD, and in her original short play ASKING FOR A FRIEND at Theatre Fest (2019). Other local acting credits include ANNAPURNA at The Chester Theater.
Michelle created the lead role in the premiere of LIFE SENTENCES by Richard Nelson at The Second Stage, NY opposite Edward Herrmann and played Juliet opposite Michael Cerveris and Viggo Mortensen at Indiana Rep. Elsewhere she has directed and acted for LA Women’s Shakespeare Co, Santa Monica Rep, Ojai Playwrights Conference and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Michelle has a BA in English Literature from Hunter College, and worked her way thru school as a successful model for the famed Elite Model Agency in New York. She has appeared on magazine covers around the world. After college, Michelle was one of a handful of American actors chosen to participate in the prestigious first ever training program after Glasnost at Balliol College, Oxford (BADA/YALE UNIVERSITY) with THE MOSCOW ARTS THEATRE and THE BERLINER ENSEMBLE. There she played Sonya in UNCLE VANYA, memorialized in a BBC Documentary about this program called A VISIT FROM VANYA. Her teachers included Brain Cox, Bill Nighy, David Leveaux, Max Stanford Clark, Diana Quick and many other luminaries from the London stage.
With a prolific acting career on television and film, Michelle is still remembered as the girl that Sylvester Stallone drops off the side of a mountain in CLIFFHANGER (famously parodied by Jim Carrey and a raccoon in Ace Ventura) and also played the victim of a global pandemic in OUTBREAK opposite Dustin Hoffmann (which became number one on NETFLIX during covid) as well as a girl losing her virginity to Jim Belushi in TRACES OF RED, and her ‘above the title’ lead opposite Dwight Yokum and Walt Goggins in PAINTED HERO. She has acted opposite James Earl Jones, Kevin Costner, David Crosby, Cuba Gooding Jr, Kevin Kline, Betty Buckley and many others. She has been directed by Lawrence Kasdan, Renny Harlin, Wolfgang Peterson, John Sayles, Sam Raimi and other accomplished filmmakers. Her career started by playing the country western star Sarah Whiting on the daytime drama SEARCH FOR TOMORROW.
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She directed the short film SWEET NOTHINGS, previously on the festival circuit. She has been sponsored by television studios for 2 Emmy awards in the Guest Actress category.
As a professional writer, Michelle has written ten studio feature film screenplays, adapting novels by luminary writers such as DL Lawrence, Kathryn Harrison, Jane Smiley, Alexandre Dumas and other award winner authors to great acclaim. During the pandemic Michelle wrote her first full length play IODINE, which she will direct in a reading this summer.
As a spoken word artist, Michelle has performed in many story salons in different cities and is a repeat performer at THE MOTH. She leads THE LONG TABLE, a women’s writing group in Los Angeles and Great Barrington. She is a proud member of AEA, SAG, WGA and Dramatists Guild, and also a member of Berkshire Voices Playwrighting Group. She writes the column YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN for The Berkshire Edge.
Michelle and her husband Robert Egan (Producing Director – The Mark Taper Forum, Artistic Director – Ojai Playwrights Conference) will launch THE RAMSDELL PROJECT later this year on their property in Great Barrington, focusing on new play development, artistic retreats and live storytelling.