Shawn has also written political commentary for "The Nation", and in 2004 he published the one-issue-only progressive political magazine "Final Edition", which featured interviews with and articles by Jonathan Schell, Noam Chomsky, Mark Strand and Deborah Eisenberg. Shawn is credited as translator of Bertolt Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera", which opened at Studio 54 in Manhattan on March 25, 2006. He appears briefly in voiceover during "Song about the Futility of Human Endeavor". He published his first nonfiction work, "Essays", on September 1, 2009. It is a collection of essays that express his perceptions of politics and other aspects of his life.