The White Heron Theater Company of Nantucket announced today that director, writer and actor Mark Shanahan has expanded his relationship with the company by taking on a new role as Resident Director.
“Mark has been a collaborator and director here at White Heron since 2017,” said artistic director Lynne Bolton. “His writing and directing is very much in line with our mission – to create new works and imaginatively staged classics. We are very fortunate to have Mark joining the creative team as resident director during our 10th anniversary season. It sets the stage for our next ten years of creative and innovative work.
In this new role, Shanahan will take on a more involved role in season planning, casting and recruiting the creative team. Additionally, Shanahan will continue to direct productions. This summer he is directing the world premiere of See the monsters of the deep (of which he is also the playwright) and Dial M for murder (with Celia Keenan-Bolger and Isabel Keating). White Heron will also revive his adaptation of A Nantucket Christmas Carol this holiday season.
“I’m proud to call White Heron an artistic home,” said White Heron Resident Director Shanahan. “It is a joy to work with the many famous theater artists who come to White Heron to share their talents with this vibrant community. Nantucket has been a part of my family’s life since I was a child, and it’s a real pleasure to be invited by Lynne, Michael, Josh and the board to return to the island regularly to create the kind of theater that I am so passionate about.
Previously with White Heron, Mark led Private life (with Jeremy Shamos, Nina Hellman, Celia Keenan-Bolger, John Conlee and Jan Neuberger) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (with Mark Price, Dan Domingues and Joe Delafield). Additionally, he starred in The spillway and is the author of the annual White Heron production of A Nantucket Christmas Carol. Mark is the creator/writer of White Heron’s Ghost Light Radio series (which airs on NPR), featuring original Nantucket ghost stories starring Christopher Plummer, Judy Ivey, Rhonda Ross and many more.
Mark is the author of last season’s hit Off-Broadway A Song of Sherlock(nominated by the Off Broadway Alliance as Best New Play 2022, returning Off-Broadway in Fall 2022), as well as Off-Broadway comedy The Dingdong, a happy little Christmas carol, The Chronology Protective Case (adaptation, Edgar Award nominee) and co-screenwriter of the short film Kill me (Adirondack Film Festival). His directing work has been widely seen at the Alley Theatre, Westport Country Playhouse, Irish Rep, Arkansas Rep, Florida Rep, George Street Playhouse, Virginia Stage, Penguin Rep, The Fulton, Theater Squared, Hudson Stage and many more. . As an actor, Mark appeared on Broadway in Alfred Hitchcock’s film The 39 steps and Philadelphia, here I come!Off-Broadway in Appointment, The Shaughraun, Small world, ladies, like bees in honey drown and others, and performed at the Kennedy Center and many other regional stages. Mark is the Curator of the Script-In-Hand and Radio Theater Series for The Westport Country Playhouse and is a graduate of Brown University (BA) and Fordham (MA).
The White Heron Theater Company is a non-profit professional theater company that produces transformative and professional productions of classic and contemporary plays.
