Hi, I’m Joey. I was born and raised in Seattle and moved to NYC in 2015 to pursue acting.
I’ve worked in regional theaters from California to Maine. I’ve enjoyed playing roles in nearly half of Shakespeare’s plays. Since attending NYU’s Graduate Acting program, I’ve guest-starred on network television including Law & Order: SVU, as well as independent features and Off-Broadway plays.
I’m eager to take part in stories that hold up the mirror, make people laugh, raise complex questions and bring people together.
I recently took my original work Joe Hill: The Man Who Never Died to the Edinburgh Fringe, one of my favorite places/events in the world.
Beyond working on stage and in tv/film, I teach acting both in workshops and private lessons. I also work as a scenic designer and technical director, a composer and sound designer. Feel free to reach out!
More about me:
Favorite movie: The Matrix – well over a hundred viewings on VHS with the behind-the-scenes featurette after. Too much? I think not.
Favorite plays: Love’s Labour’s Lost (to play) – The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (to see) – Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (to read)
A few of the many actors I admire: Dick Van Dyke, Keanu Reeves, Mark Rylance, Salma Hayek, Michael Jai White, Benicio Del Toro, Delroy Lindo, Sacha Baron Cohen, Penelope Cruz (Abre Los Ojos AND Vanilla Sky!?), Emma Thompson, Emma Watson, Heidi Gardner, Jackie Chan, Ben Whishaw, Ken Watanabe, Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Gene Kelly, Regina King, Paul Robeson, Robert DeNiro (Midnight Run!), Daniel Kaluuya, Willem Dafoe, Janelle Monáe…
Other beloved things: Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” – the 1949 studio version with Jerry Byrd on pedal steel; Long Day’s Journey Into Night (film, 2018, Chinese, incredible single-shot dreamlike final hour); Anne Washburn’s Octavia (an 8-hour staged reading at University of Washington, with planned dinner break and unplanned power-outage, inducing audience participation with phone flashlights and an impromptu change-of-venue promenade); Chuck Mee’s plays; Harold Pinter’s plays; Hook (this masterpiece has an inexcusable 29% on rotten tomatoes – beware the aggregator)
Joey Shaw 