Meet Sean O’Connor

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sean O’Connor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sean, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Great question. When I was an early teenager, I wandered suburban NJ with a feeling of emptiness and meaningless everywhere I went. Yeah, there were some good times. But none that crystallized any deep and enduring Truths. And at
that point, coming from a very dysfunctional family like so many other kids across the planet, I needed Truth and Meaning bigtime. Anything to replace this gaping hole in my soul. Then one day, I was 15 and I was wandering past my mom’s room and I heard Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, husband and wife, tearing each apart in the film version of Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” I was struck by lightning. This is my life, I thought! Not “Leave it to Beaver” or “The Partridge Family” that offered nothing resembling my experience, but this! This Virginia Woolf thing! This is territory I know. This is the world I grew up in. Then came a screening in school, the same year, of the Frederic March version of “Death of a Salesman.” And the arguments between Willy and Biff (father and son) were the same arguments I’d been having with my father. I realized that there was a way to show the Truth about this world in a way that would give meaning to your effort. Through writing, performing, and directing. I had scratched a surface. That slowly led to a path.

Still confused, still stalked by a hole in my soul, I left the wilds of NJ at 18 and hitched across Europe. Chasing any experience that offered a glimmer of meaning. I kept finding it in Art, of all forms. I was playing a lot of blues harmonica, which I taught myself while stranded on the autoroutes in France, and the autobahns in Germany waiting for a ride. And I was writing reams of poetry, wild stream of consciousness stuff. And reading DH Lawrence, William Somerset Maugham, Dylan Thomas and on and on. The culture too, in the cities in Europe, the museums, the theatre and film, had a powerful effect on me. After six months, I returned to the US. I was hungry to follow my new found interests, and whatever talent I had, into deeper arenas. Writing being the most alluring of the callings, but music and acting not far behind, plus drawing and photography.

I was lucky. I got into Columbia, and started living in Manhattan. Powerful sources of inspiration and knowledge, those two, specially for a kid so deeply yearning for them. I lived a life of poetry, novels, music, film, theatre. I kept writing long stream of consciousness poems, short stories that were like monologues ffrom a play. I started acting, in plays on campus, and in summer stock. And music was everwhere. CBGBs, Hurrahs, every speaker in every friend’s apartment, my own included. And in blues jam sessions in my mother’s garage, or some friend’s loft down in Soho. To create, in any of these realms, hit me with a shot of meaning, of Truth. Which helped alleviate the pain I’d been carrying for quite a while.

I graduated. Started acting around the city, on TV, and always writing. Poems, short stories, and then, finally, a play. That very soon won several awards. Writing that first play was a thrilling experience, so I wrote others.
And others. They started gettting produced all over. I got into film also. Aside from acting in Independent film, I wrote for Hollywood for years, and a short film of my own that I recently wrote, directed and acted in, based on a long screenplay of mine that won a major Hollywood award is heading to festivals this Spring. I’m trying to garner interest and funding to create the full length version.

Creating music is still a large part of my life. Acting and directing in theatre and film also. But a life of writing kept clearing the path in the woods I was trying so hard to get of. A path full of thickets and darkness, that led eventually to open, sunlit fields of green. I still get lost in the woods once in a while. But what I’ve learned along the journey eventually leads me back out, and into the sun.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m a writer, director and actor. I’ve written many plays that have won awards, been published and produced all over the country and in Ireland. I recently wrote, directed and acted in a film called “Summer of ’70.” It hits the festival circuit this spring. I’ve written for Hollywood and acted in everything: dozens of plays, leads on TV shows, and much indie film.

Writing is the nucleus of what I do. The nucleus of my vision, and of me as an artist. I love conjuring up completely fabricated realities and people, coalescing them together through an important story, and pursuing that story to its finish. Embedding it with everything I’ve seen in the real world. I’m not someone who shies away from putting onstage or in front of the camera things that are real yet perhaps troubling, such as violence, sex, racism, sexism, all the ism’s. If it’s integral to the story, it should be in there. I love exploring the themes of family, social problems, and romantic relationships. And…I love making audiences laugh. I also love the writing moments when you’ve tapped into your unconscious mind, and things (words, ideas, poetic expression) readily become available to you that were not available before. It’s as if you’ve walked through the back door in a jewelry store, and five other jewelry stores open themselves to you, each with more beauty and glimmer than the first.

Acting is something I’ve done a lot of. TV, film and theatre. It can be wildly fulfilling, especially when you’ve done all the necessary psychological work on your role beforehand, and it suddenly takes on a life of itself when you’re performing it. When that happens, it’s as if you’re channeling this character, and it plays itself. It’s a special feeling. And it can be painful and frustrating when, despite the work beforehand, the magic doesn’t happen. It then feels like labor, rather than freedom.

Directing is intriguing. I do love working with actors. I speak their language because I’m an actor, and I enjoy discussing the many psychological facets that make up a character, a relationship, or a moment in a scene, and then nursing them into fruition.

New Projects: I’ve recently finished a film I wrote, acted in and directed, along with several of my NYC and LA compadres. It’s called “Summer of ’70.” It will be released to festivals this Spring. A new play, “Wound,” will be workshopped this spring with NYC’s New Circle Theatre, intended for production. I finished writing a novel, “American Roulette.” It focuses on the acting world of NYC in the 1980s. Fame, wild living, the pursuit of serious art, and a central relationship haunted by traumas from the past—all as crack stormed the Palace, homelessness and violence torched the streets, and AIDS rose like a dark shadow over the party. It’s also very funny. Lastly, I’m recording a number of songs I wrote. Friends are playing different instruments along with my somewhat unbrilliant guitar and pretty good voice. I love it.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1, Strong work ethic. If you’ve got the talent, and you’ll know relatively early if you do, see it as a gift that you should nurture and nourish every day of your life. Try to sharpen your craft for a few hours or more every day. But even if it’s just for 45 minutes, keep your foot in the river, the creative process, make sure it never dries. You only reach excellence in your gift if you’re in the water every day. Or as close to every day as possible. Be disciplined. Develop this habit.

2, Curiosity about peoples’ lives, and finding out those things from their life that built the edifice of who they are. My main talents, and work experience are as a writer and actor. For both, you have to have a knowledge of people and how they became who they are. Because the more you know about the multiplicities of the human character, the deeper and more meaningful the characters you create will be. Bust out of your shyness bubble at an early age. Go out, see, experience and meet hundreds of different types of people. Let your curiosity flow. Ask the important questions about their lives, their families, their past and its experiences. The more you learn, the more you’ll have in your arsenal to create true compelling characters that hook your audience immediately because of your true knowledge of many different types of human beings.

3, Constant reading of, or seeing productions/performances of those who are deemed masters. Be it Shakespeare and Sam Shepard, or Peter Lorre and Meryl Streep, study them, the masters. You will learn so much more about your craft and these new learnings will revolutionize your talent.

4. Expand your horizon. Learn and keep learning. History, science, painting, sculpture, poetry, music, etc., plus the art form(s) that you yourself practice. It’s all seed for a vibrant soil. Travel too. Experience different cultures. There are many truths you’ll learn there about yourself that you might not otherwise learn.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I’m always looking for people to collaborate with on different projects.

1, My plays, of course. I’m presently working with Manhattan’s New Circle Theatre on my new play “Wound.” I’m always looking for theaters to offer me my next production, My canon or plays have all won esteemed national awards, been produced many times in the US, and in Ireland, and each has been published. Plus, I have some new ones, yet unproduced, but early recipients of national playwriting awards. I’d love to speak with any theater looking for powerful, thought-provoking, and comedic plays. They’re always funny, despite the inherent traumas.

2. My film. “Summer of ’70.” It’s a short. It goes to festivals this Spring. It’s based on my full-length script “Imitate the Sun” that won Hollywood’s American Accolades Award, perhaps the most important screenplay award of its time. I’m looking for producers, and the funds to make the feature.

3. I’m almost finished writing a novel, which I mentioned earlier, “American Roulette,” about the life of a young actor who’s suddenly become famous, during the wild hey day of NYC in the 1980s. I’m looking for a good literary agent, and a publisher.

4. Music is a sideline for me, a hobby. But it’s growing into a vibrant member of my wheelhouse so I’m sure I’ll be looking to get my songs around, and get them recorded by interesting bands/people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://writersean.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-o-connor-4aaa077/
• Other: The Marquis Who’s Who in America.

  My email: [email protected]