Sean Dunnington is a New York-based playwright from Hawai‘i.

His plays include Inversion, Untitled Hitler Play, Jew Bash, The Children's Farm, Zap, Flat Fish, and Hawaiian Shake. His work has been produced nationally and internationally, with workshops and readings in Hawai’i, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, and Singapore, as well as in libraries, museums, old basements, public radio stations, indie film festivals, and LGBTQ+ centers.

Sean has held artistic residencies with the East-West Center, Ka Waiwai Collective, The Workshop Theater, Orchard Project (Audio Lab), and the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office.

He has received fellowships from MacDowell, the Dramatists Guild Foundation, Magic Theatre, Creative Labs Hawai‘i, and the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing.

He won the 2021 California Arts Council’s Emerging Artist Award and was named a 2024-2025 Henry Luce Scholar, during which he spent a year in Singapore as a Visiting Resident Playwright at Centre 42.

He is the founding director of Tree Moss Hawaiʻi (est. 2021), a collective of emerging and established Hawaiʻi playwrights who center new play development, advocacy, and strengthening the theatrical landscape of Hawaiʻi.

Sean’s belief in the expansive potential of playwriting extends beyond the stage and into communal healing processes and queer StoryMaps. He views playwriting as a way for each of us to voice our narratives and foster mutual understanding.

Sean holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts (2024), a BA in Applied Playwriting from the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands (2019), and a Diploma in Classical Acting from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (2017).