Meet Starr Shapiro | Writer & Performer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Starr Shapiro and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Starr, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
Risk has been inherent to my life and career the moment I decided I wanted to pursue screenwriting and playwriting. In the entertainment industry, and particularly when it comes to writing, there is no set path and absolutely no guarantee that you will ever “make it” and earn a living writing words on a page. Given how inevitable risk is in my career, I’ve found that I cannot afford to waste energy being scared of it. After I graduated college and moved to Los Angeles, I was certainly taking risks by diving head first into pursuing writing, but I was also spending a lot of time worrying about the “what ifs” and all of the ways things may not work out for me. This is totally natural, of course, but also very draining! Now, a bit over three years since I began my journey in the entertainment industry, I’ve found that I’ve entered into a sort of ongoing truce with taking risks. They’re never going to feel comfortable, but they’re always going to be there, and so I’ve found it much more productive and peaceful to avoid agonizing over them. Instead, whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed by risk, I try to reflect on how the risks I’ve taken thus far have paid off both professionally and personally.

I moved to LA from New Jersey to work in an agency mailroom in 2021, not knowing a single soul on the west coast, and when the pandemic was still very much affecting the industry and life in general. Working at that agency allowed me to learn so much about entertainment and make the professional contacts I needed to land a job as a writers’ assistant in a TV writers’ room. While it’s a vital step on the ladder to becoming a television writer for many and an amazing crash course in how to write television, being a writers’ assistant is also a very unstable job in which most people experience periods of unemployment in between seasons and shows — yet another layer of risk to contend with. Even once you land a job in a writers’ room, you never know when or where your next gig will come from once it’s over, especially in an industry that is more fickle than ever. After surviving the writers’ strike last year and another period of unemployment earlier this year, I’m fortunate enough to be working on my third season of TV as a writers’ assistant, and I will be co-writing an episode this season, meaning I will get my first official TV writing credit. This is something I’ve been working toward since the day I booked my first flight to Los Angeles, and something that never would have happened had I not taken the aforementioned risks. Perhaps more importantly, however, taking risks has also paid off because I found community working at that first agency job. It was full of assistants just like me, who had left everything they knew to come to LA to pursue their dreams (the cliche to end all cliches, we know!). To this day, my closest friends are the people I met there, spending long hours rolling calls, snagging impossible reservations at fancy restaurants for our bosses, and performing all of the other classic agency assistant tasks. When risk exists in your everyday life because of your career, it is vital to have a support system, and I’m so proud of the one that my friends and I have created for each other. I will never be able to predict what the next chapter of my career will be, but I will always know that my friends and I will be there to support, encourage, and inspire one another.

Artistically, taking risks has resulted in some of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I’ve produced and performed in a play of mine twice since I moved to LA, most recently at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Called OBSESSED, the play is a darkly humorous story about three sisters navigating mental health, grief, sexuality, and spirituality in the face of their mother’s sudden death. The play addresses timely concerns about collapsing societal structures and the consequential lack of community that collapse creates through the lens of a young woman whose world has been turned upside down, and who has developed severe OCD as a coping mechanism. Due to the subject matter, the play’s use of magical realism, and, not to mention, the fact that it’s always terrifying to put your work out into the world, I had no idea how audiences would respond. Would they get it? Would they hate it? Would they get it and still hate it? I was so grateful to learn that people not only enjoyed the show, but also found that the story resonated with them on a deep level. Audience members shared that they felt it was an authentic and empathetic portrayal of grief and mental health struggles, and that it led them to examine their own relationships with their mothers and sisters. It is an electric feeling to know that something you wrote touched another person. This experience profoundly changed me and inspired me to continue telling stories, and I would never have grown as much as I have as both an artist and a person had I not taken the risk of putting this story up on a stage.

I have yet to regret taking a risk, and while that may not always be the case, I will continue to take them knowing that risk has led me to the most wonderful people, places, and experiences of my life. I don’t know that I will ever find it fun or comfortable to take a risk, but perhaps that is the point of them. How boring would it have been had I known exactly how my career would pan out the day I landed at LAX, and if I knew now exactly what my life will look like, and what I will achieve and, of course, not achieve, as I continue to work my way up? I think risk is the cost you have to pay to avoid spoilers for your own life. The rewards of risk taking thus far have been extraordinary, and so my truce with risk continues.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My screenwriting and playwriting often centers on telling stories about women navigating gender, sexuality, mental health, and neurodivergence. Looking back at what I’ve written thus far, I am most proud of the way I am able to infuse the stories I tell with elements of magical realism that still feel grounded and true to the story, as well as the way I am able to blend serious topics with humor. I am also especially proud of the way I’ve written about characters dealing with mental health issues. We are fortunate to live in a society that discusses mental health and takes it seriously, more so than it ever has in the past. However, despite the privilege of living in a world that is more open about mental health than ever before, people may still not have the tools they need to identify a mental health issue they are experiencing or comfortably discuss it out in the open. This is where I think art comes in and is vital to helping people feel seen and heard, no matter where they are at in their journey. In my work, I try my absolute best to ensure that the characters I create are not defined by their mental health struggles. Rather, they are people with rich inner and outer lives, interests, idiosyncrasies, careers, likes and dislikes, relationships, etc. who are struggling with their mental health at a very particular moment in their lives. It is my responsibility to tell a story about that moment in their lives with nuance and care. Sometimes, I feel that sort of specificity and empathy is what’s missing in various media about characters living with mental health struggles. It can be frustrating and off-putting to watch TV, film, or theater that relies on stereotypes, particularly if you are someone who has experienced the same struggle a character is experiencing. I am proud of the way I’ve dedicated myself to avoiding that and instead telling stories about layered and complex people for whom their mental health issues are just one thread in the much bigger web of their story.

Working my way up as a writer and, more recently, as a performer, has been and continues to be challenging for sure. As many in my shoes past and present can attest to, between periods of unemployment, high-pressure assistant jobs with long hours and low pay in which you feel like a single mistake can destroy your career, feeling like you have little control over any opportunities that could come your way, and of course, the self-doubt that consistently creeps in, working toward an artistic career is not for the faint of heart. I’ve been able to keep persevering because of the support system I have. I have a family who encourages me every step of the way, and I am surrounded by friends who are on similar journeys. I cannot imagine not having them to talk to and be with when things feel impossible, and even when things are going well. My friends have lifted me up and helped me learn how to trust myself, not just in the cliche-decorative-throw-pillow-saying way, but in a deep, grounded, undeterred way, so that even when it feels like I have no idea what I’m doing, I have the ability to remind myself of how far I’ve come and how far I can continue to go if I keep trusting myself. They’ve also kept me laughing through it all, of course. If I were to drop everything, leave LA tomorrow, and never write another word, the years I’ve spent here would be just as meaningful as they are to me now, because at the end of the day, my community of friends has helped shape me into not just the artist, but the person I want to be.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
The list of restaurants would be endless! LA is so full of great food from any cuisine you can think of. Pine and Crane is a favorite of mine that I take visiting friends to whenever I can. A hike would also be a must-do. Temescal Canyon in the Pacific Palisades is a really beautiful one I do often. Of course I’m biased given my line of work, but I think any of the studio lot tours are super fun and interesting. I’m lucky enough to work on the Paramount Lot at the moment, and the history of everything that’s been filmed there is amazing. I also think it’s fun to explore smaller, lesser known theater and concert venues. See an improv troupe you’ve never heard of or a band that’s playing at a small bar! There is so much talent here, and I think visitors can only get a sense of the true energy of the city by seeking out hole-in-the-wall type shows (they’ll also probably be way cheaper or free!). And of course, you can’t visit LA without stopping by the beach. I’m a fan of Dockweiler. It’s right by LAX, and there’s something about watching the planes fly over the ocean and disappear into the clouds that’s a great reminder of how big the world is and how small you are (in a comforting way!).

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My shoutout goes to the team that collaborated with me to produce my play, OBSESSED: Stacia Stitt, Erika Hakmiller, and Haley Ashlin. Stacia directed OBSESSED at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. She is a wonderfully kind and brilliant artist who cared so deeply about the story we were telling at a granular level — beat by beat, moment to moment, page to page. She brought out things in me I didn’t know I had in both my writing and performing. Erika’s performance in the play had an intelligence and authenticity that burned brightly, leaving audience members glued to her every word. Haley showcased her fierce ability to balance comedic genius with heart-wrenching storytelling in her performance, infusing it all with empathy and care along the way. Collaborating with these amazing women brought the show to a level I could have never imagined when we started out, and I am grateful for their hard work and big hearts everyday.

Instagram: @starrpaxton

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/starrshapiro

Image Credits
Richard Clark
Elizabeth Synnott
Anthoula Medenas