Rutgers University Student Plans To Start Company

By John McLaughlin

Rutgers student Shea Cahill, unlike many other people, is able to say that at 20 years old he had his own company. At one time he was in fact in charge of his own production company, Balcony Men, and is currently trying to start up another one.

Cahill started Balcony Men about five years ago with a friend of his. The name of the production company came to be after Cahill and his friend were looking at shadows from people.

Balcony men worked on a number of projects, one of them was an 8 part miniseries, which Cahill described as a love letter to the television series, Lost.

Unfortunately, after a year the production company came into some hard times. “Things didn’t work out after hitting multiple brick walls, projects being left unfinished and losses of clients.” Cahill said. He attempted to resurrect the company two years later by producing music videos but there was a continued lack of income.

Cahill has not let this discourage him and although things did not work out at first, he is currently determined to get another company started. He has an interest in pursuing video game production when he is able to get another company going.

Now at 26 years old, Cahill is currently residing in Red Bank, where he works as a co-manager and waiter at the Chowder House. He has worked there for about two and a half years now.  

While growing up, Cahill went back and forth between living in Holmdel, NJ and Ocean City, MD as his parents lived in separate houses.

His interest in entertainment began during his childhood, when Cahill dabbled in some modeling and acting. His mother got him into the trade where he did various work such as runway, photoshoots and small commercial work. He even had a speaking role in the movie, Runaway Bride, which was unfortunately cut from the movie.

Cahill was asked about his experience working on the set of the movie, to which he recalled that Richard Gere was nice but Julia Roberts was less than pleasant. He even remembered one incident where she became so aggravated over something that she started throwing things out of her trailer.

The summer before Cahill began high school his mother convinced him to become a certified mime. “I think it was a way for my mom to get me to shut up.” said Cahill.

Cahill proved to be quite the thespian in high school, as he participated in a children’s theatre which ran two to three shows a day. After playing a comedic role in one successful production, he then typically played a comic relief-type character which became a recurring theme. He participated in a lot of short comedies throughout his time there.

Aside from theater, Cahill also participated in sports and played lacrosse for five years in a private league in Maryland. During his five years playing for the Beach Lacrosse league, he played defense and striker.

Cahill, in addition in getting another production company started, is currently working towards earning his bachelors in Journalism and minoring in sociology at Rutgers University.