Shawn Kathryn Kane born into a multicultural family in Staten Island, New work and speaks some Spanish and German. She grew up playing soccer and running track and eventually, she switched her athletic focus and became a certified yoga instructor. She is a graduate of the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and has studied in Los Angeles with Ivana Chubbuck. She has worked with NYC- and LA-based theater company The Common Tongue, which has collaborated with such artists as Edward Albee, Wendy MacLeod and Lucy Thurber.