Her father, who was a Deputy Chief[1] in the New York City Fire Department at the time of her birth,[2] left her mother and her older sister Diane, soon after she was born.
[4][5] Shear came to prominence with her self-penned solo performance piece Blown Sideways Through Life (described by Frank Rich as an "autobiographical monologue").
[8][9] Shear's employment experiences as a member of the American work force - sixty-four jobs in all, including pastry chef, nude model, waitress, whorehouse receptionist, proofreader, and Italian translator - provided her a wealth of material for her piece.
[13] Shear's acting credits include the films It Could Happen to You (1994) and Living Out Loud (1998)[14] and a guest appearance as "fake Monica" on the NBC sitcom Friends in 1995.
"[17] Christopher Ashley, who staged the world premiere of Restoration at La Jolla Playhouse, directed the work for its New York debut.