Shea's Invites Community To Michael Shea Birthday Celebration

Shea's Performing Arts Center invites the community to celebrate Shea's Buffalo Theatre founder, Michael Shea during an April 1 birthday event featuring special treats and prizes.   

Born to Irish immigrants on April 1, 1859 in St. Catharines, Ontario, Michael Shea came to Buffalo as a young child. The family settled in the Old First Ward. Michael began working at the young age of 12 on the docks of the Buffalo River and later as an Iron Worker, before opening a saloon which allowed him to save for dreams in the entertainment business. Eventually Shea operated 13 theatres, with Shea's Buffalo being his crowning masterpiece.  

The community is invited to visit the Shea's Performing Arts Center Box Office at 650 Main Street in Buffalo between 11:00AM and 1:00PM on April 1, 2025 for a Michael Shea birthday party.  WKSE Radio host Nicholas Picholas will be providing the music and trivia. Visitors can pick up a cupcake baked by Fairy Cakes Bakery and Radah Baked Goods, while supplies last. Those that stop by can also spin a prize wheel for a chance to win Broadway and Shea's centennial merchandise and enter to win tickets to upcoming performances of The Cher Show, Ain't Too Proud, or Legally Blonde.  

A Buffalo Evening News article published just after his passing dated Wednesday, May 16, 1934, remembered Shea like this: “The life of Mr. Shea was such as authors imagined in fashioning their thousands of stories about poor boys overcoming obstacles and eventually winning fame and fortune.  From a boyhood spent on the lake docks, and an early manhood passed as a structural iron worker, he rose to be a power in the theatrical world, known from coast to coast, and universally respected.” 

While in the Box Office, visitors can purchase a subscription to the newly announced Five Star Bank 2025-26 Broadway Season or tickets to any of the many performances coming to Shea's three stages this spring.   

Willaim M. Eberhardt, who served as Buffalo Common Council President from 1934-35, said, “Michael Shea was a distinguished contributor to Buffalo's progress, and his career is a shining example of the able grasping of the opportunities that lie within our own city for all citizens, who, like Mr. Shea, have the foresight and courage to make use of them.”  

January 16, 2026, will mark the 100th anniversary of the grand opening of Shea's Buffalo Theatre.