AWARDS
2018 Donald F. Smith Award - Outstanding Performing Artist
2015 Bistro Award - Outstanding Concept Show | In The Still Of The Night
2012 Julie Wilson Award - Outstanding Performing Artist
Shana is a classically trained actress/singer and award-winning supper club/cabaret/concert performer who has played at venues such as Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), Jazz at Lincoln Center (Rose Theater), Feinsteins at The Regency, Feinsteins/54 Below, Birdland Jazz Club, Amarnick-Goldstein Concert Hall, Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, and The Missouri Theatre as well as London's Crazy Coqs and The Pheasantry to name a few; and in 2022, she added Westminster Abbey to her roster.
She has performed leading roles in musical theater, operettas and plays. New York highlights are: Ruth in Blithe Spirit, Marion Paroo in The Music Man, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow, Miss Lucy in Sweet Bird of Youth, Titania/Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Laurey Williams in Oklahoma!, Melissa Gardner in Love Letters, the title role of Princess Ida, Princess Margaret in The Student Prince, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, and Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen Of The Guard at venues including New York City Center, McCarter Theater, York Theatre Company, Rhynsburger Theatre, and with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera amongst others.
Shana is the recipient of a Bistro Award for Outstanding Concept Show that she conceived, wrote, and produced, In The Still of The Night - all music and words of Noël Coward and Cole Porter. She has received two Mabel Mercer Foundation Awards: the Julie Wilson Award given to a rising star in cabaret; and the Donald F. Smith Award for her "all-encompassing, critically acclaimed and joyously received achievements in musical theater, operetta, drama and recordings." Her solo concert/cabaret productions have been received with accolades all over the US and abroad. She has been lauded for her tribute shows The Songbook of Julie Andrews: Whistling Away the Dark and The Songbook of Barbara Cook: It's Not Where You Start; her duet show with the renowned Prince of Cabaret Steve Ross, We're Old Fashioned: The Jerome Kern Songbook; her salute to Tony Award-winning musicals, Lullaby of Broadway, and she just recently performed a new autobiographical show Dream Reality.
In addition to her stage and concert career, Shana Farr has been seen on film and television both taped and live. Recently, she hosted several live, virtual interviews with Sir Ian McKellen, F. Murray Abraham, John Andrews, OBE, artist Wayne Hart, and author, Robert Windeler. These interviews can be watched on her YouTube channel. She is co-producing a new television series, Creative Encounters, on which she swaps stories with many of her famed friends and colleagues with careers in the performing arts industry.
She appeared in the award-winning short-film Confession; she has been featured in several additional short-films and commercials, most recently, the short-film Imogene due out in April 2023; and Shana is asked to participate in many rehearsed readings of both plays and musicals of new works and classics appearing in venues including The Players, The Actors Studio, Theater for the New City, and most recently with the Resident Acting Company.
Her debut album Out Of The Shadows was released in November 2012 with a live performance and celebration held at The Players with a glowing review from the Wall Street Journal saying “Her voice is bright, strong and true. . .and Ms. Farr is probably the most convincing younger American to sing Noël Coward.”
Shana studied acting from an early age in the Midwest, graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from Boston University School for the Arts and made her professional New York musical theater debut at New York City Center with the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players in the lead role of Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen Of The Guard earning her rave reviews in the New York Post, Backstage, and the New Jersey Star Ledger.
