Shellie O’Neal has long been inspired by the life and work of Fanny Crosby:  she first learned of Mrs. Crosby in a Sunday School class when she was 7 years old.  Thirty-one years later, while Shellie was writing a children’s religious play, she encountered Fanny’s story again and felt God leading her to write a play she could perform about this remarkable woman.  O’Neal penned this play after conducting research which culminated in a trip to New York City, where she visited the New York Institution for the Blind where Crosby received her education and served as a teacher.  She also visited the New York Public Library and viewed Crosby’s personal scrapbook; the Bowery Mission where Crosby did social work; and Plymouth Church, where Crosby listened to her favorite preachers.  O’Neal has written 26 plays, two of which have won Texas state playwriting competitions.  This is her first one-woman show.  Dr. O’Neal grew up in Carthage, Texas and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Tyler and her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University.  She taught for three years at U.T. Tyler and for the past 18 years has served as Director of Theatre at Navarro College in Corsicana, where she has directed over 70 productions.  Dr. O’Neal was voted Professor of the Year by her colleagues and students at Navarro College in the spring of 2012.  Shellie began performing her second one-woman show, The Ministry of Angels, in December, 2015, and has given 40 performances of that piece.  She began performing her third one-woman show, God Bless America: A WWII Radio Hour in June 2019.  She is a member of St. John’s Church in Corsicana where she sings in the choir.

Shellie’s children’s play, 911 Gnomes: A Christmas Emergency, was chosen as one of twenty plays worldwide to be performed at the inaugural RAVE Theater Festival in New York City in August 2019.  Shellie’s script was performed five times in an off-Broadway theatre on NYC’s Lower East Side.

Shellie has performed this one-woman show 140 times in 134 locations including Carthage, Lampasas, Frost, Dallas, Troup, Brady, Snap, Grand Saline, Gilmer, Houston, Dallas, Killeen, Mesquite, Arlington, Kerrville, Frisco, Beaumont, Victoria, Waco, Flagstaff, Arizona, and a number of locations in Corsicana.  She celebrated her 40^th birthday by performing on the platform on which Fanny Crosby often spoke and sang at the Bowery Mission in New York City.  In May 2018, she performed in Bethesda, Maryland at Fourth Church, and she performed this play in the summer of 2016 in Ferrara, Italy.