From Libertyville to London, and beyond...

Shannon grew up in Libertyville, IL, where she enjoyed participating in youth theatre, usually playing someone’s obnoxious little sister. At school, she could be found singing in various acapella choirs or faking sick in order to read paperback novels in the nurse’s office.

She loved her time at Butler University in Indianapolis, where she had the opportunity to act both in class and main stage productions, as well as learn about the backstage components of theatre, such as lighting and costume design. The summer after her sophomore year of college, Shannon interned at the Indiana Repertory Theatre, one of the Midwest's largest theaters, in downtown Indianapolis. Shannon worked alongside professional actors, directors, musicians, and choreographers, to teach students scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream and songs from popular musicals.

During her junior year, Shannon studied abroad in England, taking Shakespeare, Contemporary Theatre, and Philosophy of the Arts courses at Royal Holloway University of London. Her semester overseas broadened Shannon's perspective as an actor and a person, and made her even more pedantic about the “proper” way to brew a cup of tea. 

Outside of her time in Europe, Butler's VITA (Visiting International Theatre Artists) program provided Shannon with other opportunities to look at theatre from a global perspective. While at school, Shannon performed in several productions directed by prolific London stage actor Tim Hardy, who is also on the board at the famed Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts, or RADA, in England. She also performed traditional Kathkali dance in a production directed by four theatre artists from India, and blended broad Shakespearean physical comedy with traditional Indonesian stylized theatre techniques in a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream adapted by her Balinese professor, Dr. I Nyoman Sedana. 

Shannon began assisting teaching youth classes at imProv Playhouse when she herself was fourteen years old, and little more than a paid tattletale. She has now served as staff on many fully staged youth productions, for students ranging in age from six to sixteen. Over the years, she has graduated from junior counselor to stage manager, to assistant director, to director and choreographer running the show!

Shannon penned an original screenplay to serve as the capstone to her degree at Butler University. She has adapted several well-loved children's stories for the stage, and her students have performed them as part of imProv Playhouse's annual summer camps. In the spring of 2015, imProv hosted a two-day workshop reading of Shannon's original stage adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. 

Shannon continues to seek out new creative opportunities to broaden her horizons and skill set, including reviewing movies and television shows for culture site The Spool, writing for comedy sketch shows at Chicago's Cornservatory Theater, appearing in short films and audio productions, and continuing her education as an actor.

She is currently working extensively as a performer, writer, researcher, and producer on the podcast series Little Women: A Modern Audio Drama. The show passed 100,000 individual downloads within a year, and the scripted finale charted on the Apple Podcast Top 100 scripted podcasts.

Shannon's hobbies include reading multiple books at once, cooking spicy foods from around the world, collaging with old magazines, and begging her morbidly obese cat, Luna, to exercise. She is a frequent guest on friends' podcasts thanks to her reputation as a goof who can, quote, "talk the paint off a door."