Sean San Jose

Sean San José is a native of San Francisco of mainly Filipino and Puerto Rican background. He is a proud member of Intersection for the Arts and their resident theatre company Campo Santo. He conceived the theatre project "Pieces of the Quilt", a collection of new, short plays confronting the AIDS epidemic. San José organized and created the AIDS Service Arts organization Alma Delfina Group-Teatro Contra el SIDA, to distribute funds and present benefit performances. As Founding Director he has worked, commissioning these pieces and then presenting the plays in theatres, schools, libraries, clinics and community centers. Started as an homage to his parents who died of AIDS, the collection includes an ever growing group of over 35 writers, with currently over 70 plays. The plays are commissioned by and written expressly for the Alma Delfina Group mission to be used and performed solely as benefit producing events. Program I premiered at the Magic Theatre in 1996. The production featured the World Premiere of plays by prominent authors; Migdalia Cruz, Philip Kan Gotanda, Danny Hoch, Naomi Iizuka, Octavio Solis, Erin Cressida Wilson and Lanford Wilson. The show was unique and unprecedented for being a pure benefit production. Every single ticket sale went directly to AIDS service organizations- not a percentage and not a portion and not after expenses- but every single dollar earned from single ticket sales went to AIDS service organizations. The chief beneficiaries were the national AIDS service organization and inspirational Names Project, organizers of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and Project Open Hand, a group that feeds and fixes meals, groceries and diets for persons with HIV and AIDS. The events at the Magic theatre alone raised over 20 thousand dollars for AIDS service organizations. Program II premiered at the Solo Mio Festival in 1997, before starting a Bay Area Tour. Program II productions featured 8 new monologues written expressly for San José to perform and develop the evening with plays written by potent writers; including Danny Hoch, Herbert Siguenza of Culture Clash, and Erin Cressida Wilson. Program III of Pieces of the Quilt featured premiere pieces by theatre auteur Maria Irene Fornes, legendary performer Rhodessa Jones, Tribal Chief Greg Sarris, and others. Program III was a layered multi-media event highlighted by live original music from percussionist Josh Jones, vocalist Scheherazade Stone and turntables from DJ Fuze of Digital Underground. The production was featured as a preview as part of the Whitney Museum's Keith Haring exhibit in San Francisco in 1998, then premiered at the Solo Mio Festival and continued in a 3 venue Bay Area tour. In 2001 the group co-presented the first full-length evening by one author with the World Premiere of Contagion by John Steppling. The next commissioned and co-presentation was a new full-length play by Erin Cressida Wilson and San Jose with live music – i feel love- in 2002. Completing this series was Domino, part of San José’s second residency at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Sean has been involved with and performed in more than 100 individual benefit performances of "Pieces of the Quilt" for schools, libraries, clinics and AIDS Service Organizations. These benefits have been frequently performed free for disadvantaged groups and have benefited dozens of different AIDS service organizations. The benefits have been performed in venues as large and far away as the Ashland Oregon Festival, to others as intimate and immediate as the Mission-Castro Free Health Clinic in San Francisco, in over 30 different venues for theatrical and educational purposes. Sean performed the benefits for over 5 years for schools and churches on World AIDS Day workshops and performances. The pieces have been performed for audiences as from Middle School students all the way to Senior Citizens homes. With the Alma Delfina Group, San José has been part of such national task forces of AIDS education such as: the National AIDS Theatre Festival, the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine National Conference, the National World AIDS Day Educational Workshops, Day Without Art and others. The group was an official program of the Keith Haring AIDS Memorial Chapel at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

San José represented the unofficial Acting Company for 3 years at the Magic Theatre, during Mame Hunt’s Artistic Director post, performing in over a dozen plays and workshop productions in 5 seasons. San José also had the opportunity to work on several premiere productions with national writers at the Magic that parlayed beyond the Magic, including 6 World Premieres with Erin Cressida Wilson, 3 productions with Marlane Meyer, 4 productions with Octavio Solis, and 2 World Premieres with Nilo Cruz. During his career he has appeared in the premieres of works by Caryl Churchill, Philip Kan Gotanda, José Rivera, Jon Robin Baitz, Danny Hoch, Alice Tuan, Edwin Sanchez, Greg Sarris, Denis Johnson, Naomi Iizuka, and Migdalia Cruz, among many others. His work has been exclusively in the development and production of new work. He has appeared and created the roles in over 50 world premieres in both one act and full length plays.

His work in new plays and with new writers led to the creation of the theatre group Campo Santo. "A multicultural theatre company that brings socially relevant plays to life in direct and accessible ways that let the power of the words carry and create the productions, reflecting and re-imagining society." In its first 10 years Campo Santo presented more than 30 premiere productions. As Co-Founder and Program Director San José has overseen, worked with, developed and produced the first plays of Denis Johnson, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Dave Eggers, Greg Sarris and more, as well as sustaining rare, long term relationships with Philip Kan Gotanda, Naomi Iizuka, Octavio Solis, Erin Cressida Wilson and others. All of the plays are created in long term processes and are made especially for the company. The group has received many awards, sold out houses and a long term residency at San Francisco's prominent Intersection for the Arts in the heart of the Mission District. The group has made itself a part of the community by providing free performances for neighborhood groups and offering free internships and workshops for younger folks and students.

More recently he has taken more of his own writing into literary and performance venues, new works rooted in the Filipino cultural experiences. Readings and performances have been performed at Locus Arts, Kearny Street Workshop, the Asian Pacific American APAture Festival, Yerba Buena Center Unpacking Series, and most prominently in collaboration with Kularts in their POMO Filipino Performance Festival at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He was awarded one of the final Audrey Skirball-Kennis TIME Grant Awards to support the development of his new work. Previously he has been awarded a San Francisco Art Commission Individual Artist Commission, as well as two residencies at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco from the Wattis Artist Residency, among others. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for his work including: the Bay Area Critics' Circle Award, the DramaLogue Award, Backstage West, the Cable Car Gay Arts Award and the Bay Guardian Goldie Artistic Achievement in Theatre.