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Sean San José

He // Him // His

Performance Creator

San Francisco, California

Sean, a Filipinx/Puerto Rican male-appearing person with a raised fist, wears a burgundy barong shirt, glasses, and a red and black United Farm Workers hat.

Photo by Joan Osato.

Sean San José is a writer, director, performer, and co-founder of Campo Santo, a new performances group for People of Color in San Francisco. Founded in 1996, Campo Santo is committed to developing new performance and to nurturing People of Color-centered, new audiences and has premiered over one hundred new works. For fifteen years San José was the Program Director of Performance under Deborah Cullinan, alongside Kevin B. Chen and Rebeka Rodriguez, for Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco’s oldest alternative arts space. He co-created Alma Delfina Group-Teatro Contra el SIDA and Pieces of the Quilt, a collection of over fifty short plays on AIDS. Writing commissions and productions include Play On! for Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Ictus Productions, Kronos Quartet, Kularts, and others. In his multi-genre work, San José has developed and directed the first performance pieces and plays with Jimmy Santiago Baca, Junot Diaz, Dave Eggers, Star Finch, Chinaka Hodge, Denis Johnson, Luís Saguar, and Vendela Vida, and he has enjoyed ongoing collaborations with creators Luis Alfaro, Jessica Hagedorn, Richard Montoya, and Roger Guenveur Smith. He is a proud part of Colman Domingo’s production company Edith Productions for film, television, and theatre. San José is in his second year as the Artistic Director at the Magic Theatre, where he is the first person of color to hold the position in the history of the theatre.

Donor -The Rainin Arts Fellowship is supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.

This artist page was last updated on: 08.20.2024

In an otherwise pitch black room, a person bathed under a red light spins a long piece of fabric around their body. A figure to their left looks down towards the ground while a third to their right, covered in long fabric tassels, kneels on the stage floor.

Dugo, I don't want to go by Sean San José, 2022. Performance, 60 minutes. Presented by SOMA Pilipinas. Pictured, from left to right: Adán Ortega, Sean San José, and Rashad Pridgen.

Photo by Destiny Evans.

A close-up of Regina Monique, an African American woman wearing hoop earrings and a white collared shirt, in front of an out-of-focus, aerial view of San Francisco.

Side Effects by Star Finch, directed and produced by Star Finch, Joan Osato, and Sean San José of Campo Santo, 2020-2022. Film/play, 82 minutes. Presented at the Magic Theatre.

Photo by Joan Osato.

A man in a plain robe kneels on a stage under purple lights, facing the camera with his arms outstretched. Behind him is a large projection that reads, "Transition to the religious." A second figure stands in the background next to a bathtub, surrounded by dozens of small candles on the ground.

The Travelers by Luis Alfaro, developed with Campo Santo, and produced by and presented at the Magic Theatre, 2023. Theatre performance, 80 minutes. Pictured, from left to right: Juan Amador and Ogie Zulueta.

Photo by Jay Yamada.