Sean Burn

Between Valentine’s day and first day of winter, three lads and an ancient and mischievous shapeshifter collide repeatedly. One lad carries an urn, literally unable to let go of their best friend’s ashes; the second is homeless because he came out as bi; the third has no recourse to public funds. As they dodge a system that engulfs and traumatises, can the mythical and ancient beira help them still the glitch in their broken minds? An epic story of life, death, and everything in between, mad(e) is a passionate, exhilarating and uniquely theatrical commentary on masculinity and young men’s mental health, co-created with boys and young men nationally. Ultimately, it is about healing, informed by the playwright’s own lived-experiences.

1981 & a hard right government make savage cuts as party members wear hang nelson mandela badges. poverty, racist attacks, hunger strikes, terrorism & a royal wedding ... & playground chants ov spaz change to joey because joey deacon who lived with cerebral palsy appears on blue peter. friend who played stiff little fingers loud, wore dm's with red laces & fought to learn cookery saw the future coming, knew they were going to get called joey so got in first by declaring their name wz joey from now on, a still breath-taking reclamation. ultimately joey is a high octane monologue about multiple possibilities for survival, about rewriting futures - its not too late. Embarking on a preview tour in June 2019, the play will be performed in english and British Sign Language at Queens Hall Hexham, Pulse Festival - Ipswich, ARC Stockton and Northern Stage Newcastle upon Tyne. The project is supported by ACE, Northern Stage, Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme, Live Theatre and PULSE.

An epic love story told across four centuries by Sunderland-born Tanya Sealt, a woman who cannot age until she has cried. Collector of Tears is a play about about history, oppression and loss. Taking both male and female lovers, Tanya is an outcast. She carries with her an amazing collection of glass tear bottles which she tenderly unpacks before telling their stories. On the day of Margaret Thatcher's resignation on 22 November 1990, Tanya finally stands her ground and fights those who have hunted her and her lovers, male and female, down through time; finally learning how to cry. Best North East new play of 2014 by the British Theatre Guide.

sean burn's third full-length poetry collection ranges across poems on the great punk collage artist linder, on the little-known cumbrian sculptor / painter lorna graves and a moving tribute to the incredible tuvan singer sainkho namchylak. he explores mans impact on the lake district and there is also an excoriating poem on water privatisation. he gives us a week of prose-poetry fairytales from the czech republic and a further cycle on scarring. bastilles englan is a forceful multivoiced psychiatric hospital break-out based on the authors own history. there are further long poems on dance, on coventry, on america under bill clinton and on the state of europe over the past decade (steal this loneliness). the book finishes with the title poem which is an intense transgender love story.

* Launched in conjunction with the Tara Theatre's production in London prior to national tour. * From acclaimed playwright Sean Burn Time Out Play of the Year 2004, Peggy Ramsay Foundation Award 2006, Dadafest. * Shortlisted Artist 2009, BBC's Alfred Bradley Bursary Award. * This hard-hitting play celebrates the diversity of our society in which one in four experience mental ill-health. * Ideal for use in schools, colleges, youth theatres, amateur and community groups