Hi, I’m Shayna

I've always been writing. It just took a long time to get here.

 

I was raised in a small Colorado town and couldn't wait to leave home for the big city and live out my dream to be an actor, because... Meg Ryan.

 

I went to The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago for my BFA in Acting, and, just like every one of the other kids I graduated with, I had absolutely no idea what was in store for me. When my first big job out of school became Time Magazine's "Play of the Year 2000" and was scheduled to be produced with our original cast at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2001, I moved along with it to New York City.

 

I quickly learned that being Broadway.com's "Fresh Face" only lasts as long as the job you have at the time. Between commercial gigs and plays that no one saw, I started to doing comedy, because you don't have to wait for anyone else to give you permission to write and perform when it’s comedy. Back then there were stages a-plenty.

 

I began with sketch and met some of my best friends and members of my sketch group in classes at Upright Citizens Brigade. Then I added musical stand-up to the mix, performing out with my guitar as often as I could. These were the days of NYC's "Alternative Comedy" scene where you'd be absolutely honored to be on a show in a smelly, dark, back room of a small bar in the East Village. I did this for years, watching legends be made, characters developed and ideas experimented with, all while working hard for my own big break. I performed my stand-up, did a one-woman show, had a full comedy band act, went to several auditions a week (I stopped counting around 700) and also had a thankfully flexible day job at a design firm.

 

During my decade in NY, I also got married and had a baby. I was eight months pregnant while co-producing Sketchfest NYC and performing a sketch comedy version of the third "Grease" called "Threase." I literally hauled my guitar on my back to the West Village from Queens the Monday before my water broke on Thursday.

Six months after our daughter was born, we decided we'd had enough. We moved our little family back to Colorado to live in Denver. By the time we got there, I was already pregnant with my second kid (whoops!) so I guess you could say I STILL kept creating.

 

Two months after the new baby was born (because I just can't help myself) I started a brand new comedy show for moms called "The Pump and Dump Show" at a bar in my Denver neighborhood that had a stage. The show quickly caught on and grew to sell out multiple local venues per month, and within a few years we started to tour nationally. To this day, I cannot remember, or fathom, how my comedy partner, Tracey Tee, and I wrote, produced, performed and promoted it all ourselves, AND traveled from city to city like we did - all with tiny kids at home - but we somehow survived it.

 

We were selling out large music venues all over the country, were represented by WME, cast new duos of moms to travel and do the shows so we could stay home more, and we started a podcast with the umbrella brand we created called "Band of Mothers" produced by Warner Bros. We published a book and went on the Today Show. We played for 1500 moms every Mother's Day Eve at The Paramount in Denver. We built and managed a team of 15 people. We were helping thousands and thousands of women to feel validated and giving them a night out, for once. We had raised money, gathered investors, bought all new equipment, and were planning the launch of an additional Fall 2020 Off-Broadway run and an East Coast tour to add to our West Coast and Chicago casts.

 

That's right. I said 2020.

 

March 13, 2020, we had to shut it all down. We had 56 shows booked between March and June that we had already marketed and sold 50% of the tickets for. Everything came crashing to a halt. Hard. I know we are not alone in having suffered loss during that time, but it felt unimaginable. It still does.

 

It took a long time to recover. I even professed that I never wanted to do anything creatively for myself again. Saying the words "I never want to sell another ticket" became a new freedom for me, a weight off my shoulders that I hadn't felt in my 20+ year career. I leaned into my graphic design skills and consulted and created content and websites for small businesses. It felt safe and nice to be good at something again. I also spent several months in 2022 learning how to day trade both stocks and crypto, as one does.

 

But then, I had an idea for a story. It came to me in a dream (I know) and I didn’t know what to do with it. So I wrote a novel.

 

I certainly surprised myself. I set out to deliver my story in the most challenging way - in the way that would scare me the most. I wanted to learn, to start from scratch. And most importantly, I wanted it to be an exercise in having zero outcome in mind - an experiment just for me. I wish I could say it still feels that way.

 

I had completely forgotten how much I missed this kind of work. The problem solving, the brilliant ideas (and the not so great ones.) The milk being accidentally put away in the glasses cabinet when you're obsessing over a concept. The triumphant feeling of working through something that ruined your sleep for a week. The muscle memory of creation and feeling like it came from directly from your bones. And the thrill when it reaches an audience.

 

So I'm writing more novels. I’m upping my social game. I’m making myself a nice office space to do it in. I’m making time for it. I’m convincing myself I can and I should. I’m letting go of the loss of my business and my show.

 

I’m making room for my next chapter.