"Let EACH MAN EXCERCISE THE ART HE KNOWS"

THE WASPS, Aristophanes, 422BC 

Sean Buhagiar (1986) is a professional Theatre-Maker, Artistic Director and Creative Producer based in Malta. Sean is the current Artistic Director of the National Theatre Company of Malta, Teatru Malta. The company was established in 2017 and Sean was chosen as the first artistic director following an international call. Buhagiar first read a Bachelor in Communication Studies and Theatre Studies at the University of Malta. He holds a European Masters Degree in Performative Creativity from Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Université Paris-XIII, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland and the University of Malta; where he researched theatre, creativity in performance, creative strategies and arts education.  In 2015, he was presented as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award by the Junior Chamber International Malta, for cultural achievement.

​

Sean has directed over 12 productions and produced over 30 productions in Malta during the past 15 years. He started his theatre career as an actor and trained at the Malta National Drama Centre. He worked both locally and abroad, having toured in Ireland, Tunisia and Italy. Today, he works mostly as a theatre director, having directed works for, amongst others, the Malta International Arts Festival, the Manoel Theatre and the National Theatre Company. The three productions he directed between 2014 and 2015 at the Manoel Theatre, broke audience records for Maltese Theatre that year. For Soundscapes, Sean created the dramaturgy for Kirana an experimental children’s opera with school children in Żejtun. The dramaturgy has since then been toured in schools in Denmark, Latvia, Holland, France, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In 2019 he directed the highest grossing original musical theatre show in the Maltese language, Il-Kbir Għadu Ġej. Productions he directed or produced have garnered 15 National Arts Awards nominations in the last three years.

​

Sean also actively worked in the film industry where he acted as Production Manager, having managed over €4M million worth of productions in 2014, His main projects being three locally produced international produced by worldwide distributor E-One. Locally, he actively collaborates with Stargate Studios.

Between 2010 and 2013, Sean worked as the Performing Arts Executive of the then Malta Council of Culture and the Arts handling the portfolio of Film, Theatre, Dance and Music. He worked on the implementation of Cultural Policy and Arts Funding, having managed over €2M in public funds. He was the first Maltese national to be accepted to the Atelier for Festival Managers organized by the European Festivals Association where he presented a paper titled 'The Legacy of the Immediate' in late 2012. He has actively participated in a number of IETM (International Network of Performing Artists), Circostrada and European Theatre Convention conferences.

​

Sean has also co-produced nine productions with the Manoel as part of the Staġun Teatru Malti project, a project aimed at encouraging new indigenous theatre-works producing three original plays a year. He was the first Artistic Director for Dr Klown, a clown voluntary doctor project at Mater Dei Hospital. This is a project he is still active in today.

​

Sean was the Artistic Director of Notte Bianca Valletta (NBV), the largest cultural event in the capital city and part of the worldwide Nuit Blanche Festival network. He directed the festival between 2013 and 2018. In 2016, NBV pushed new media and digital arts on the national stage and in 2018 it was listed by The Guardian as one of as one of the top ten autumn events in Europe.

​

Sean has been participating in the Malta International Arts Festival for a number of years. He produced Malta's first contemporary performer-based circus show for the Festival in 2013, and a theatrical site-specific adaptation of Nicholas Monsarrat’s best-seller, Kappillan of Malta in 2014. This was followed by Immanuel Mifsud’s epic Faith, Hope u Charity in 2015, and in 2016 he produced and directed B’Tal-Linja Jaqbillek Żgur, a large-scale street theatre production which toured community spaces in the five regions of the Maltese Islands on a Maltese Bus. In 2017, he directed Balzunetta Towers, an original cabaret at Pjazza Teatru Rjal and in 2018 he produced Ħanina Maddalena, an original musical by Simon Bartolo based on the real story of the Magdalene Nuns during the time of the Knights of St. John. All the productions were held outdoors and were the most attended events of the Malta International Arts Festival during their edition. In 2018, he directed Raymond “Fight” Beck for Teatru Malta and The Crucible for the Manoel Theatre. Both productions achieved significant critical success.

In 2014 and 2015, he was the Artistic Consultant to Science in the City, which became the fastest-growing arts and science festival in Malta organised by the University of Malta and the Chamber of Scientists. Between 2015 and 2016, he held the post Deputy Artistic Director of the Valletta 2018 Foundation, European Capital of Culture where he was responsible for assisting in the development of the five flagship projects of the Valletta 2018 Foundation. In 2015 he was appointed as the artistic expert responsible for collecting data as part of the Theatres Audit for the Cultural Mapping project by Arts Council Malta and the Valletta 2018 Foundation. His first publication cataloguing Maltese Theatres was published in March 2017.

In January 2017 Sean was appointed Artistic Director of the National Theatre Company Teatru Malta, comissioning and programming many successful productions like Raymond “Fight” Beck; which turned the theatre into a boxing ring, Is-Serra; a translation of Harold Pinter’s ‘The Hot House’, held inside Malta’s mental health hospital, Ilħna Mitlufa; a rediscovery of Malta’s lost folk song, Gawgaw; a Christmas pantomime held in complete darkness, working with the visually impaired, Sette; a commemoration of Malta’s biggest uprising on the 7th of June 1919, held outdoors in one of Malta’s biggest fortresses and L-Interrogazzjoni; a thriller based on a real- life murder held in a living room of a private residence. In 2018, during the European capital of culture, he was nominated for Artist of the year at the National Arts Awards. He recently succesfully directed the first Maltese translation of A Clockwork Orange – A play with music by Anthony Burgess, adapted for young adults, for Teatru Malta and Ziguzajg Festival to great acclaim.