Sean-Joseph Choo

Based on real stories, admissions day is an anti-imperialist, pro-Hawaiʻi play that follows two fish spirits that transform into my part-Hawaiian grandparents making sense of the world as the Territory
of Hawaiʻi transforms into the State of Hawaiʻi. It is both a love letter and critique of the mid-century centrist Democratic politics. The narrative explores militarism, kanaka maoli identity, and the shifting political sands of history, from the fall of the Hawaiian Kingdom to her absorption into the US of A.

William “Billy” Kaʻilihaʻo is a young Kanaka Maoli (Hawaiian) painter and university drop out. After having increasingly intense dreams where elemental spirits speak to him, Billy returns home to seek out answers from his culture and his ʻohana. But home becomes a place of conflict, when Billy inherits a portrait that everyone wants for their own. Legacy, colonization, and the artists’ connection with nature are explored in this dreamy family drama.

otou-san is a father-son redemption dramedy set in Hawai’i in fall 2020. It follows Kuya Yamaguchi, a twenty-something year-old nerd who plans to escape his problems and the world by entering a Matrix-type game he invented. But when his conservative father gets accidentally trapped in his game, Kuya must confront his inner demons and ghosts of his past to save the day.

A queer retelling of the infamous tragic story, the folly of icarus follows the journey of the titular hero and his doomed love with Prince Asterion. Icarus is the son of inventor-genius and government sycophant, Daedalus, who is at the beck and call of the theocratic Queen Pasiphae, head priestess of the cult of Poseidon. When it is revealed Asterion must become an object of sacrifice for his mother’s cult, family secrets are revealed that cause Icarus to rage against the political and religious machine of Crete’s elite, in the name of all that is good, and in the name of queer mythological love.

Connie Ishimoto is a high schooler in Honolulu who sometimes lives with her famous actor dad, and sometimes with her television producer mother. When her aging playwright grandmother returns home from decades in the continental U.S., she is confronted with mortality, and tries to deal with it with her art. Oh, also she has an imaginary dragon friend.

A dark, comic twist on the myth of Urashima Taro, this one act play mocks and highlights the sinister side of tourism in Waikīkī.

It is the fall of 1987 in Honolulu, and a gay songwriter is struggling to write lyrics, until divine inspiration comes. Written to honor the playwright’s uncle, Douglas Paul Maligro AKA Sean Duque.