Sean’s Workshop Modules

TOOLS: Theatricality Workshop Series

TOOLS is a workshop series for playwrights curious about theatricality—the unique magic of theatre that invites audiences to “believe” what they see on stage is true-to-life, even while knowing it's not real (to an extent). Each session dives into a specific element of this conceptual spell, blending discussion, hands-on activities, performance, and experimentation.

These workshops are open to playwrights and theatre makers of all experience levels who are engaged with, or curious about, craft.

Past recipients include:
- Centre 42
- Main Tulis Group

  • This workshop will explore what stage directions can do beyond blocking and lighting cues. How can they become indispensable to the play? Can they describe things that never appear? Should they be interpreted as literal, tonal, or something else entirely? Can they dare be ignored? Through examples and practice, we’ll test how much stage directions can shape a play.

  • This workshop investigates the remapping process, where one thing stands in for another and real-world elements correspond with their stage-space equivalents. What happens when a stick becomes a gun or a house is described as an imaginary zone? We’ll examine the audience’s role in recognizing these substitutions and experiment with how to teach them to understand the play. 

  • This workshop explores the dichotomy between when something actually happens on stage and when something looks like it actually happens. What’s the difference between a character really eating, fighting, or swimming, versus the play tricking the audience into thinking they really did any of that? We’ll test how far we can push in both directions.

  • The boundary between the stage and the audience defines theatre’s magic. What happens when we reinforce this boundary? Or when we cross it? Can it ever actually be broken? This workshop explores the "fourth wall"—its purpose, rules, and what happens when we try to mess with it.

  • The shape of a play is more than its structure—it’s how time and space interact to guide the audience’s attention and understanding. In this workshop, we’ll explore scene intervals, transitions, and disjunctions, and how these elements shape the play’s rhythm and illusion.

Writing Without Boundaries Workshops

creative writing as a tool for exploring identity. Participants will be given time to respond to writing prompts, and will learn new ways of sharing their writing with one another.

Past Recipients Include:
- East-West Center

TRHT Narrative Design Workshops

TRHT Narrative Design Workshops utilize playwriting as a process to help participants imagine and practice how they can more authentically convey their complex narratives. This hybrid artistic process involves the writing of our stories in relationship to self, each other, and ʻāina, which then layers in elements of acting, directing, and the other aspects of dramatic storytelling. Through this series, we share and embody the stories of our community, “performing” both our own and one another’s authentic, truthful identities.

These workshops are for practitioners working within Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation™ (TRHT) frameworks, restorative justice methodologies, and IDEA practices, as well as facilitators of Rx Racial Healing® Circles / Pilina Circles.

Past recipients include:
- UH Mānoa Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office
- Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing

  • Utilizing a simple response and reflection free-form writing workshop, participants will be introduced to the writing framework, writing practices, and 'Mirroring Narratives Speakbacks.'

  • Participants split into groups of two and share a prompted 'Moment' with one another. After sharing, they will bring their moments to life through dialogue, tone, staging, and direction.

  • Participants will write a 'Moment' through a string of form-specific bursts, which includes nonfiction first-person POV, secondary-POV, third-person memoiristic, and a dialogistic play.

  • This session is primarily writing-centric, where participants will explore the writing of their ‘Moment Monologues' in an intentionally creative space and share ideas / receive support.

  • Participants will share their ‘Moment Monologues’ in groups of two. They will trade scripts and share one another’s ‘Moment Monologues’ aloud. We will then explore truthful acting.

  • For our final session, participants will move through a variety of games and warmups to practice sharing our ‘Moment Monologues'. Then, we will finally share, reflect, and celebrate!

Story Sharing and Radical Listening

Innovative techniques for writing and sharing parts of your mo‘olelo (story) out loud. In particular, we will focus on mo‘olelo that expresses your experiences of home. No prior experience necessary.

Past Recipients Include:
- Henry Luce Foundation (Luce Scholarship Program)
- Hawai'i Ku'u Home Aloha Summit
- US State Department
- Ocean thing

Make it stand out.

  • “Sean is the best"

    Dr. Kaiwipunikauikawēkiu Punihei Lipe

    Director of Native Hawaiian Place of Learning at the University of Hawaiʻi

  • “It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business.”

    Jamie Kokot

  • “It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business.”

    Lindsey Beumer

  • “It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business.”

    Keith Finley

Storytelling & Creative Consultancy

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  • A Workshop Series for Playwrights Exploring Theatricality