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Sean San José enthusiastically gravitated toward this play for translation. “Coriolanus is [a] tough task in theme, length, and language. But it also reads and rings true to me. It is messy, about morality and morals, people and politics.” In his introduction to the publication, José asks, “How do we break open some of the words, the lines, the logic, so it is not a battle to hear the meaning? How do we make it more accessible in many ways? I loved that idea. Had Shakespeare been accessible to me, maybe I would not feel as far from it on the surface.”
Playwright
Sean San José
Sean San José is a writer, director, performer, and co-founder of Campo Santo, a new performance 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 100 new pieces. For 15 years, he was the Program Director of Performance under Deborah Cullinan, alongside Kevin B. Chen & 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 50+ short plays on AIDS.
Writing commissions and productions include Play On Shakespeare with 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 Baca, Junot Diaz, Dave Eggers, Star Finch, Chinaka Hodge, Denis Johnson, Luís Saguar, Vendela Vida, and more and has enjoyed ongoing collaborations with creators Luis Alfaro, Jessica Hagedorn, Richard Montoya, Roger Guenveur Smith, and others.
San José is a proud part of Colman Domingo’s production company Edith Productions for film/television/theater. He is in his second year as the Artistic Director at the Magic Theatre, the first Person of Color to hold the position in the history of the theater, where they are now developing and producing new works with more resident companies of Color than anywhere in the Bay Area.
Dramaturg
Rob Melrose
Rob Melrose is the Founding Artistic Director of the Cutting Ball Theater and works nationally as a freelance director. He has directed at The Public Theater (Pericles, Prince of Tyre), The Guthrie Theater (Happy Days, Freud’s Last Session, Pen, Julius Caesar – with the Acting Company); The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Troilus and Cressida – in association with the Public Theater), The Old Globe (Much Ado About Nothing); Magic Theatre (An Accident, World Premiere); PlayMakers Rep (Happy Days); Black Box Theatre (The Creature, World Premiere, BATCC Award for direction), as well as Actors’ Collective; The Gamm Theatre; Cal Shakes; and Crowded Fire, among others.
His directing credits at Cutting Ball include A Dreamplay, Ondine (World Premiere), Mount Misery (World Premiere), Communiqué no˚ 10, Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep, Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night (World Premiere), Pelleas & Melisande, the Bay Area Premiere of Will Eno’s Lady Grey (in ever lower light), The Tempest, The Bald Soprano, Victims of Duty, Bone to Pick & Diadem (World Premiere), Endgame; Krapp’s Last Tape; The Taming of the Shrew; Macbeth; Hamletmachine, As You Like It, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Roberto Zucco, and My Head Was a Sledgehammer among others. His translations of Woyzeck, Ubu Roi, Pelleas & Melisande, and Communiqué no˚ 10 have been published by EXIT Press. He has also translated Phèdre, The Chairs, The Bald Soprano, No Exit, The Stronger, and The Man with the Flower in his Mouth. He has written a number of plays including Helen of Troy, Asylum, Divorsosaurus, and his rock musical of L. Frank Baum’s Ozma of Oz. He has taught at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, USF, the University of Rhode Island and Marin Academy. He has a B.A. in English and Theater from Princeton University and an M.F.A. in directing from the Yale School of Drama.
In Print
Coriolanus
A powerfully topical new translation of Shakespeare’s study of military power and political folly.
Bay Area director, actor, and producer Sean San José takes on the themes of power and politics in his version of Coriolanus, Shakespeare’s exploration of militaristic might and political folly. San José’s take on this little-known classic reimagines the text to be spoken by and for a community of “others.” The translation, which brings Shakespeare’s language into our era, rendering its thematic and dramatic power broadly accessible, is powered by a reexamination of populism in our current political moment.
