performances

having previously created many live art works from a barefoot clown in business suit and briefcase called bakudan thru to launching ovada with an exploration of the universal declaration of human rights, the main current performance which is now touring is bastilles englan

bastilles englan (live and disability art) is part reclamation, part provocation, and wholly an exploration of escaping asylums and subsequent journeyings towards fragile freedoms. its starting point is poet john clares asylum break out in 1841 and 5 day walk home to freedom.  bastilles englan was premièred at platform 0000008 supported by amino and has now toured internationally.

plays.

sean burn has been writing for theatre since the early 90's including work for maverick productions, grampian hospital arts trust, aberdeen family festival and paines plough.  below are summaries of his main recent plays.  please get in touch if you wish to read a script. 

calyx. first draft theatre, london. 2007.  calyx, deals with a child abducted and kept for 2,000 days (over 5 years) by her abductor. this play is about her escape from the abductor and her growing again into the world as an adult.  calyx is the name given to the outer, leafier part of a flower which protects the developing bud.  calyx was originally a one act play. due to its success it has now been developed into a full length script.

collector of tears.  (full-length monologue). this epic and magical monologue, set in sunderland and told across five centuries by tatiana sealt, a woman who cannot age until she has cried. instead she collects tears from moments of northern radical history, while learning to fight for human rights and finally understanding her own bisexual identity forged across centuries. having been moved on from every place and losing every lover, on the day of margaret thatchers resignation tatiana finally stands her ground and fights those who have hunted her and her lovers down time.  an earlier draft was given a development fortnight and two presentations at queens hall arts centre, northumberland, 2009.

cormorants.  sean burn's short radio play for radio 3's free-thinking festival can be downloaded at http://audioboo.fm/boos/584086-cormorants-by-sean-burn it is a forthright exploration of love in the face of hate crime, as well as the healing power of art

cutter – commissioned / toured by half moon theatre, london.  (time out's play of the year for children and young people 2004) cutter is one of thatchers children. born in 1979, becoming 18 in 1997, she has lived thru the destruction of her mining community and watched her family die, with only her granda, an ex-boxer, ex-miner, to guide her.  ultimately however she frees herself from ghosts of the past, winning the boxing bout she has been training for. 

fell. rehearsed reading, cloud nine theatre, bishop auckland. fell is a haunting one act play for two males aged 30 (with flashbacks to their teenage years in care together) and set on the top of dove crag, lake district. mol and dee, grew up in care together, uniting over their love of carter u.s.m songs.  mol deliberately fell in this location as a teenager and then did a runner. fifteen years, half a lifetime on dee has testified in court about staff member bryants abuse of his best friend with mol returning to hear bryants guilty verdict. climbing this time round mol starts to deal with his past and dee unburdens himself of a devastating lie from his childhood he told mol - that his mother was dead when she was really in a psychiatric hospital. their resulting fight ends with mol kissing dee, finally returning the kiss dee gave mol when he fell. fell is intensely redemptive, exploring tentative regaining of friendships after terrible destruction in the most evocative of locations.  

ghost-tag. (performed by under construction at courtyard and barons court theatres london and pleasance theatre, edinburgh festival, 2006)  ghost tag provides a glimpse into the life of rhiannon, a young single mother, who at nights paints the town of rochdale with her famous tag, ghost.  her encounters with joan, a clubber from manchester and their subsequent relationship plus the copper whose life she saves, become the catalyst of change in her life.� exciting and in fact quite revolutionary in today's theatre, namely giving an optimistic, vivid voice to a culture which is often depicted in the most nihilistic terms.’ missfits

next swan down the river might be black. touring nationally in 2012. 

 see www.swanblack.info

'you think you wont survive, but you do' . three young women. a psychiatric ward.  one momentous week.

a poetic and personal response to being detained under the mental health act, following the authors own 'sectioning'.  witness the shifting alliances of three young women on a psychiatric ward over one momentous week.  cerys, 19, black and depressive, kay, 26, white and bipolar and zee - a pakistani british student nurse and former service user are all fighting a faceless institution in their own way. the play examines diversity, friendships, sexualities and power at a time of rising uncertainties. can they summon courage to live through it all?  this hauntingly lyrical play has a fragile hopefulness at its core and has just been short-listed for the alfred bradley bursary award with the bbc

redvoice - interlinked monologues about living with psychosis performed by the author. commissioned by the door, birmingham rep for beyond the boundaries festival 2004.

 sweet. ctc, darlington. 2007. an uplifting and exciting one-woman performance for young people starting from the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the british empire, and weaving together a rich story of four brave women whose lives together span the two centuries since this historic act.

taking the blood of butterflies. weaver-hughes ensemble / oval house theatre, london. 2006.  (recipient of a peggy ramsay foundation award.)  in a war torn country, a mother, her daughter and a peacekeeping force struggle to survive.  under siege and numbed by war, the soldiers are slowly slipping into madness.  soon their war cries of valour and duty are replaced by death and abuse.  inspired by büchners woyzeck this play explores the effect that war has on the mind and body when exposed daily to horror and conflict.

'a theatrically powerful frieze where poetic, dream-like speeches and dialogues, shift in and out of incisively directed physical images, abstract lighting and sound effects. ... the writing surprises with imagery and insight revealed beneath the rubble'. theatre world

terra. zeitgeist theatre, kings head theatre, london. 2009.  how far would you go to preserve the environment from developers?  terra is about land and the lengths we go to, to either exploit or protect it.  terra focuses on three peoples varied reactions to the northlands – a remote and unspoiled land, ecologically hugely important while also economically extremely disadvantaged.  the london performance featured half this one act play - another character has since been added to make it a three-hander.

voices.  pegasus youth theatre, oxford. 2006. sometimes a single spark is all it takes - literally. one trigger and the community is torn apart for a generation. random acts, choices and their consequences are played out as a community loses control. the youth are under curfew, kept in their cages and this is how they respond. voices is a reaction, retaliation, an outpouring of emotion to the pain felt by the youth in the aftermath of a tragic incident. yet, there is beauty, love and redemption amidst the hurt - a phoenix arising from the ashes.