Tom Shillue: Spontaneous Combustion
We all tell stories about our life. But did you ever get used to telling a story a certain way, and then come across some surprising new information that changes the ending?
In his previous solo shows Impossible at the Edinburg Fringe, and Supernormal at PS 122, and in his book Mean Dads for a Better America, Tom told funny stories about his childhood growing up in Massachusetts and his disciplinarian “Mean Dad.” In his newest show Spontaneous Combustion, Tom adds depth and insight into these funny stories while solving some long-hidden family mysteries.
After her death in the spring of 2022, Tom was at his mother’s home with his siblings going through photographs, jewelry, and heirlooms, including boxes of his mother’s artwork, and a treasure-trove of his father’s poetry and prose, untouched since his death in 2019. These finds changed the ending of some of Tom’s favorite family stories, like the puzzling “spontaneous combustion” of the Shillue family car in the 1970’s, and the secret behind his dad’s sudden transformation from “Mean Dad” to “Mellow Dad” in the fall of 1985.
