John Shea has been a Board member since 2015, and the Board’s president since June 2019. He is a Detroit native who moved to Washtenaw County to attend the University of Michigan for undergraduate school, then stayed around for law school, too. After graduation, he practiced law for a few years in Chicago, then returned to southeast Michigan, ultimately opening his own firm in Ann Arbor on Leap Day in 1988. He’s been in the same location ever since. That same year he met Marilyn Warner, to whom he has been happily married for 30 years.

John came to love dance after taking his first ballet class at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, while a first-year attorney. Through that class, he was fortunate to land a role as an “extra” in the Zurich Ballet’s production of Don Quixote, with Rudolph Nureyev as artistic director and principal male dancer. Seeing the beauty, strength, and athleticism of ballet up close made a deep and lasting impression. He is grateful to give back to the mission and vision that Ballet Chelsea embodies.