Andrew Sellon

Andrew is an accomplished playwright, lyricist, and librettist, and while an undergrad at Harvard he wrote the book and lyrics for a number of produced musicals, including a Hasty Pudding Show that played Cambridge, NYC, and Bermuda, and a children’s musical produced by the Boar’s Head Theatre. He has performed his solo play "Through the Looking-Glass Darkly," about the true story of Lewis Carroll and Alice, at universities and libraries, and is seeking a full production. "The Other Side of Illyria" is his blank verse LGBTQ+ rethinking of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Andrew has just completed book, lyrics, and music to an original musical adaptation of a classic Dickens tale. He is currently working on a new solo play about his unique relationship with favorite Shakespeare characters, and...

Andrew is an accomplished playwright, lyricist, and librettist, and while an undergrad at Harvard he wrote the book and lyrics for a number of produced musicals, including a Hasty Pudding Show that played Cambridge, NYC, and Bermuda, and a children’s musical produced by the Boar’s Head Theatre. He has performed his solo play "Through the Looking-Glass Darkly," about the true story of Lewis Carroll and Alice, at universities and libraries, and is seeking a full production. "The Other Side of Illyria" is his blank verse LGBTQ+ rethinking of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Andrew has just completed book, lyrics, and music to an original musical adaptation of a classic Dickens tale. He is currently working on a new solo play about his unique relationship with favorite Shakespeare characters, and finishing his first YA fantasy novel. As an actor, Andrew has performed a wide range of roles in plays and musicals in NY and at theatres around the U.S., including Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express, Polonius in Hamlet, The Fool in King Lear, Bazzard in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and all 35 roles in Doug Wright's solo play I Am My Own Wife. He is best known to TV audiences as Mr. Penn, The Ventriloquist, and Scarface in Seasons 4 and 5 of Fox’s Batman prequel Gotham. Other Film and TV includes Begin Again, The Smurfs, The Blacklist, Divorce, The Good Fight, and Halston. He is on the narrators roster for Hachette, Macmillan, and more; audiobooks narrated include Turncoat by Stephen Brumwell, The Kevin Show by NY Times bestselling author Mary Pilon, and Nobody's Fool by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. Since 2016 Andrew has also been on the Western Colorado University faculty as Performance Coach for their Graduate Creative Writing Program, and for five years he taught playwriting and solo performance for the Graduate Creative Writing Program of University College/DU. Education: BA cum laude in English & American Literature, Harvard College; MFA in Acting, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently repped by About Artists Agency in NYC as an actor, and is seeking representation for his writing. Andrew is a member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild.

Scripts

The Other Side of Illyria

by Andrew Sellon

Synopsis

On one side of Illyria: the all-male world of straight, white, powerful Count Orsino. On the other: an impoverished convent led by Oracula. In the middle: the beautiful and mysteriously unmarried Countess Olivia. During a shipwreck, identical twins Viola and Sebastian are separated; both assume the other died. To protect herself, impoverished Viola disguises herself as a young man and begins to serve Orsino...

On one side of Illyria: the all-male world of straight, white, powerful Count Orsino. On the other: an impoverished convent led by Oracula. In the middle: the beautiful and mysteriously unmarried Countess Olivia. During a shipwreck, identical twins Viola and Sebastian are separated; both assume the other died. To protect herself, impoverished Viola disguises herself as a young man and begins to serve Orsino. Sebastian, traumatized by the loss of his sister, disguises himself as a young woman and hides from the world in the convent. But when both twins are sent to woo Olivia for their leaders, a series of romantic LGBTQ+ mix-ups occur, forcing everyone to learn what it means to know who you really are and who you truly love. Inspired by Shakespeare's famous play and characters, but entirely original in its scenes and blank verse, this is a "Twelfth Night" for today. Gentle, witty, romantic, sexy, surprising, and moving. It includes four original songs for Feste, the Clown; sheet music is at the end of the script.

Through the Looking-Glass Darkly

by Andrew Sellon

Synopsis

Imagine that after living an apparently devout, spotless life of almost 66 years, Lewis Carroll (aka Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) arrives at the gates of Heaven and is denied entry until he can refute the posthumous biographies that have hinted at a dark underside to his relationship with his child muse Alice Pleasance Liddell. In this theatrical fantasia, Rev. Dodgson returns from limbo to present his...

Imagine that after living an apparently devout, spotless life of almost 66 years, Lewis Carroll (aka Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) arrives at the gates of Heaven and is denied entry until he can refute the posthumous biographies that have hinted at a dark underside to his relationship with his child muse Alice Pleasance Liddell. In this theatrical fantasia, Rev. Dodgson returns from limbo to present his case before today’s audience, whom he enlists as both judge and jury. What was the nature of his relationship with Alice? Why were his relations with the family suddenly cut off when Alice was 11? What was written on his diary page for that day—and why did someone remove it? Can we judge the actions of another time and place through our own society’s lens? Drawing extensively from their own words and real events, this play lets us, the audience, hear from both Dodgson and Alice, and key members of their social circle. And then we must decide his fate.