Paula Shaw

Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Paula began acting as a teenager, playing lead roles onstage at NYU's Bronx campus (before women were enrolled there) while still in high school. Upon graduating from prestigious Bard College on full scholarships, earning her B.A. in Dramatic Arts, she entered the revolutionary off- and off-off-Broadway theatre scene of the 1960s. While playing "Lizzie" during an off-off-Broadway production of "The Rainmaker," she met fellow actor James Mendenhall, with whom she partnered and ran the Playhouse-on-the-Mountain, a summer theatre on Mt. Cathalia in Ellenville, NY, for three seasons. There, Paula played leading roles in iconic shows such as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Rain." After working on and around Broadway, and touring in shows during the late 60s, the highly ground-breaking and controversial play "Geese," written by Gus Weill and produced by Mendenhall, brought her to California for the show's West Coast debut. After relocating to