sebastian michael
writer, director, producer & george
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Sebastian was born in Manchester, UK, and grew up in Basel, Switzerland, where he went to school and started his first theatre company theatertheaterEdelGrau with which he staged his first two plays, Sentimental Breakdown... and Dialog, in both of which he also appeared.
Following a short stint at Basel University (officially enrolled to study English, German and Philosophy, but really spending all his time with the English Department's theatre company as well as his own), he moved to London where he's been living ever since. He trained as an actor at Drama Studio London and set up another theatre company, Aesthetics on Stage, with which his first four English plays were brought to the Edinburgh and London fringe respectively: Sisters (which he also directed), QED, All The World (in which he also appeared, directed by Mehmet Ergen), and Exit. Sebastian then continued to work as an actor in various touring productions, before taking time out to concentrate on his writing. His plays The Power of Love (Southwark Playhouse, London, directed by Michael Cabot), Love Hurts (rehearsed reading, Arcola Theatre, London) and Time After Time each individually reached the shortlist, long list and final ten respectively of Soho Theatre's Verity Bargate Award in separate years and together now form the Love Trilogy. His play Top Story was presented as a rehearsed reading at the ICA London in May 2008 as part of the Accidental Festival, and Elder Latimer is in Love was staged to critical acclaim at Arcola Theatre in the autumn of 2009, directed by Adam Berzsenyi Bellaagh. His latest play Baur Au Lac received a rehearsed reading, starring Susannah York and Illona Linthwaite, in March 2010 and is now in development towards a full production in 2011. Sebastian also wrote the book and lyrics for the musical Monstersound which made it into the final round of the Musical of the Year Competition in Copenhagen, and the libretto for Alvaro’s Balcony (Landor Theatre, London). Together with actress and singer Charlie Bicknell, Sebastian is Kissing the Goldfish, the music comedy act that performed at numerous festivals and theatres in London, Edinburgh, Glastonbury, Adelaide, Hong Kong, Belgium, France and Switzerland. He he has written a novel, Angel, and he is the writer of The [Power] Book, a collaboration with Prof Ludger Hovestadt and Vera Bühlmann of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, which postulates a new energy culture for the digital age and is due for publication in 2011. Sebastian has written and directed two short films: Twenty-Six Takes on Life Without Allen, which was screened at festivals in Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Lisbon and Padua, and The Study of Bunkers & Mounds in a Temperate Climate (Relatively Speaking), which was ‘highly commended’ in the TCM Classic Shorts Competition 2006 and premiered in the official selection for the International Film Festival Locarno 2007. He also produced the award-winning Daisy's Last Stand, directed by Gary Grant. The Hour of Living is Sebastian's first feature film. |