Sean Barnett
Director
2026 BFA Drama, Directing
Sean Barnett is a director, writer, and actor, centering joy and embracing sincerity. Drawn to comedies, musicals, and new work, he approaches his storytelling as an energetic fanboy at heart, fascinated by how the uniquely silly and absurd often reveal our most honest humanity.
At Carnegie Mellon University, Sean directed his capstone production, Matt & Ben by Mindy Kaling & Brenda Withers, exploring resentment and platonic love in long-term friendships. In Spring 2025, he made his Off-Broadway debut, assisting Jonathan Silverstein on the world premiere of All The World’s A Stage, a new musical by Adam Gwon (Keen Company), which won the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Musical.
Sean is especially passionate about developing new musicals. He has directed three original shows by collaborators Catcher Fox Sanchez and Noah Van Ess for CMU’s Playground Festival. The team was recently commissioned by the New Hazlett Theater to present a staged reading of their romantic comedy musical, There Goes The Bride, which they are continuing to develop, alongside other projects.
In 2024, Sean made his professional directorial debut with 13: The Musical (San Diego Musical Theatre), winner of six Broadway World San Diego Awards, including Best Musical & Best Direction of a Musical. During the pandemic, he founded Bohemian Arts, a non-profit dedicated to providing accessible arts programming in his hometown of Temecula, California. As Artistic Director, he produced numerous podcasts, a YouTube talk show (The Theatre Project), 24-hour theatre festivals, and the first full-length musical to reopen the Old Town Temecula Community Theater: [title of show] by Hunter Bell & Jeff Bowen.
As a filmmaker and audio storyteller, Sean co-wrote the screenplay for The Job, a neo-noir thriller short film screened at the London Lift-Off Film Festival and IndieX Film Festival in LA. In 2022, he co-wrote, co-directed, edited, and sound-mixed PowCast!, a fiction-comedy podcast series depicting the secret exposé interviews by America’s top alpha-human journalists, satirizing superhero storytelling tropes. The full series can be found on YouTube and Spotify.
He continues to be excited by telling heart-forward stories that generate hope for a better tomorrow.
Work Samples
Matt & Ben
By Mindy Kaling & Brenda Withers
Directed by Sean Barnett
CMU School of Drama – October 2025
13: The Musical
Book by Robert Horn & Dan Elish, Music & Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Directed by Sean Barnett
San Diego Musical Theatre – July 2024
There Goes the Bride (Staged Reading)
Book, Music, & Lyrics by Catcher Fox Sanchez & Noah Van Ess
Directed by Sean Barnett
New Hazlett Theater – January 2026