About Me

Sean’s art and stories offer and advocate for peace, joy, and the hope of healing found in unexpected places and unusual perspectives.

Sean-Joseph Takeo Kahāokalani Choo is a multi-ethnic, multi-hyphenate Hawai’i-based artist, from Honolulu. He’s the Lead Steward and Head Jester of Kamamo House, an artist cultivation organization, theatre collective, and podcast. Sean’s play, otou-san was aided in development by mentor Chay Yew. The play won highest marks in the 2021 Creative Lab Hawai’i Playwrights Immersive Program, and is a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2023 as well as Semi-Finalist for the 2023 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.  His play the isle is full of noises was also selected for the 2024 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center as a Finalist and was developed in The Playwrights Realm’s inaugural Native American Artist Lab, where he was mentored by Rhiana Yazzie & Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl.

Some recent things Sean is excited about: the premiere of his play, Beretania Snapshots at Kumu Kahua Theatre, spring 2024; directing for Hawaii Shakespeare Festival, helming a production of One Uddah Mid'summah, Jackie Pualani Johnson's adaptation of Shakespeare's fantastical comedy; his ongoing feature as part of Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design’s 8x8: Source exhibition.

Some museum-related work: Sean was an SFCA American Rescue Plan Grant recipient to fund a short play showcase, featured in Capitol Modern’s QASI Queer Arts Festival.  He was also a featured devising team member and composer for Imi Ā Loaʻa an augmented reality play produced by Honolulu Theatre for Youth and Capitol Modern.  Sean worked on sound designing/composing for Under the Blue in Capitol Modern’s POD space.  Sean was honored to be one of three Pasifika commissioned artists as part of Weaving a Narrative, a workshop series created in collaboration with the Übersee Museum (Germany) and the Pacific Virtual Museum Project (New Zealand) connecting the topics of meta-data, storytelling and community engagement.

His dark comedic one-act play, tourist shell shock, based on the Urashima Taro myth, was developed in partnership with The Skeleton Rep, and had a premiere in New York, June 2022. Sean’s one-man show, i love my AAPI grandparents! premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre’s NuWorks 2022.

As a company actor at Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Sean has helped devise numerous shows over the six seasons he worked with the company including co-producing, co-writing, composing, and co-directing “Da Holidays” episode of The HI Way, which won a Regional Emmy in the category of Arts/Entertainment-Long Form Content.  

Some favorite roles: very proud to have played a queer Kanaka Maoli lead character, Lovey, in Lovey Lee by Moses Goods (Kumu Kahua Theatre, dir. Reiko Ho); Vicente in Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark (KOA Theater, dir. Reiko Ho); Pinocchio in The Adventures of Pinocchio by Nathaniel Niemi and the HTY ensemble (Honolulu Theatre for Youth, dir. Nathaniel Niemi); You and Me and the Space Between by Finegan Kruckemeyer (Honolulu Theatre for Youth, dir. Eric  Johnson); Caliban in Shakespeare's The Tempest (Hawaii Shakespeare Festival, dir. Jordan Cho).

His sketch, improv, and musical comedy work has been featured with groups improvhi and Polynesian AF at the Hawaii Comedy Festival. Sean regularly performs his one-man musical improv show, Sean Choo’s CD Release Party, produced by improvhi. He also recently gotten into clowning, and has taken workshops with Aitor Basauri, Noah Bremer, Virginia Scott, and Amrita Dhaliwal.  He most recently was honored to be clowning around as a host for Robert Farid Karimi’s Game Night at Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design.

Sean’s other dramatic composition, sound design, and songwriting work have been featured in productions at Honolulu Theatre for Youth (Super Aunty by Lee Cataluna) Atlantic Theater Company (Hearstrings, by Lee Cataluna), The Studio Theatre - Tierra Del Sol (The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh), Kumu Kahua Theatre, and Hawaii Shakespeare Festival.

He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists, TYA/USA, ASCAP, and is founder of Kamamo House.