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Aurand Harris Memorial Playwrighting Award Jun 02

RECENT WORK: My new play, Teenagers in Love, opens at the Chain Theatre Main Stage in NYC on June 2, directed by Debra Whitfield (link for tickets: https://bwprods.ticketleap.com/teenagersinlove).  And New Truck for Paulie, winner of Southern Appalachian Rep’s Best Playwright award, opens at the California Stage in Sacramento this July, directed by Patrice DeHart. I recently wrote, directed and acted in my film Summer of ‘70 (MDB page: pro.imdb.com/name/nm5599722/filmography). I plan to direct the feature next year.  My award-winning The Knitting Club was also produced this past November at Pelham, NY’s SOOP Theatre, directed by Debra Whitfield (I played the character ”Lou”). In Feb 2020, I directed my play Broken Birds, also at the SOOP Theatre. A new play, Miss Hollywood, which won NETC’S prestigious Aurand Harris Playwriting Award, first opened at the Hawk Theatre in Silverado, CA, in 2019, directed by Keyana Rhoden. It was recently chosen, like many other of my plays, by the Drama Notebook to be distributed for production throughout schools across the country. And Future Stars Theatre in Neenah, WI, will produce my World of Sinatras in July, ‘22. It was first produced a few years back at NYC’s Arclight Theatre with the Project Rushmore Company. It was also nominated for Best New Play of 2013 by the Southern Appalachian Rep, and received a grant from the Pilgrim Project.

Another new play, Wound, recently won Best New Drama in the prestigious Writer’s Digest Competition. It beat out over 6,000 other new American plays. It was also a semi-finalist in the 2017 O’Neill Playwrights Conference. The Unraveling, another recent play, was awarded a grant from the Puffin Foundation, and produced in 2017 at the Actors Studio’s Elia Kazan Festival. I’ve converted it into a film script and am presently raising funds to shoot it in 2023/2024. (For my earlier work, which is a lot, please check my resumes gathered here, and of course, reviews, etc., much of which are here also.)

I recently had the honor of accepting the N.E.T.C.’s 2019 Aurand Harris Memorial Playwrighting Award (you can see my award speech below). The N.E.T.C. is one of the most vital theatre organizations in America, nourishing and giving life to vital new plays. Miss Hollywood takes place in the late sixties. It examines the hypocrisies, the bigotry, and the clashes of class and religion in one small town in New Jersey. At its center is a love triangle consisting of the smart, charming doctor’s son, Luke – the handsome, tough, working class Eddie – and the brilliant, beautiful and wonderfully Jewish Patti, aka Miss Hollywood, a young woman far ahead of her time.

It was such a privilege to be honored at the New England Theatre Conference Awards Ceremony, and to receive the prestigious Aurand Harris Award for my new play, Miss Hollywood.

You can see the awards presentation here (My award presentation is at 40:16):

World of Sinatras Jul 25

OVERVIEW and INTERVIEWS: I’ve spent my life writing, acting and directing. I was fortunate to have been a member of the great Circle Rep in its heyday, and I’m presently a member of the Actor’s Studio. Ten of my plays are published. Each has won a national Best New Play award. They’ve all been produced many times in NYC, and in regional theaters across the country. Two have been translated and published in French, to be produced in France by the Baz’Arts Company. And my play Broken Birds was produced in Dublin at Bewley’s Cafe Theatre. I’ve written films for USA Network and Nasser Entertainment. Several of my own film scripts have won national awards, one currently shot and in festivals. I’ve also acted in everything. Lead roles in dozens of plays in NYC and regional theatre; lead roles on All My Children and Another World. And leads in several independent films. My movie script, Imitate the Sun, which won First Prize in Hollywood’s esteemed American Accolades Competition, was, as I mention above, filmed as a short entitled Summer of ‘70 (SEE IMDB LINK: https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm5599722/filmography)

Last year, I directed my award-winning play Broken Birds at the SOOP Theatre in Pelham, N.Y. Lastly, I’ve completed writing a TV pilot, King Dollar, based on my surreal experience as writer/performer for the cable show Basil Basset Bingo.

Below are some recent interviews where I discuss my work. First is an interview I did last year with WPVM in Asheville, No. Carolina. The show is “Blainesworld.” My spot (visual and audio) is the first 30 minutes. Please feel free to watch a bit, and jump around.

BELOW IS ANOTHER INTERVIEW I DID—WITH THE NEW JERSEY RECORD ABOUT WORLD OF SINATRAS.

Click to read:

Below is some press World of Sinatras has received during the workshop process (and like all my plays, you can read reviews on this site).

“An amazing play. I cannot remember the last time in a theater that I shared so much laughter and so many tears with such a great number of people. A true, collective poetry of the heart.”

Clark Middleton, Artistic Director, Apt. 929 Theatre Company


“A complete tour de force. It’s heartbreaking and hysterical all in the same moment. Sean O’Connor uses his considerable talents as writer, actor and poet to plumb the shattering cultural experience of America combusting in the sixties and the shattering personal experience of a family combusting at exactly the same time. It’s spellbinding.”

William Electric Black, Artistic Producer, La Mama E.T.C.


“A major new American work. It’s an intense, very funny and deeply poetic piece of theatre. Sean’s phenomenal gifts as both writer and actor are in high gear…it left a profound impact upon me.”

Kathy Towson, Managing Producer, Creative Voices Theatre Company, Creative Place Theatre, and the RCL Writers Workshop.

And below is some press for The Unraveling.

“There are moments in Theatre where we experience something that truly takes us somewhere else and Sean O’Connor’s THE UNRAVELING brought forth the magic to do just that. The writing was extraordinary and I didn’t just listen to the words, they engulfed my mind and my soul, thus obliterating any other emotions I had brought in the room. The characters were so beautifully brought into existence by such honest language I felt as if all my friends who had passed away during the 80’s came back into my life like a fire ball of light that carried me back into another time. Relationships were the subject, inn a period of time when we first began to enter the Aids crisis. Thank you Sean for caring so much about relationships. Thank you for caring about all who are gone and thank you from all who survived to live with the loving thoughts about the friends who were the generation that was lost. Theatre magic happened on the stage last night. It’s what I live for. My heart is so full of love and excitement from what I experienced.”

Adrienne Doucette, Artistic Director, Project Rushmore Theatre Company

Category: Current Projects