Stupid Fucking Bird
Video Designer
Boston Court • 2014 • Pasadena, CA
In this sharp, self-aware remix of The Seagull, Sean Cawelti’s video design layered live feed, looping projections, and digital abstraction to heighten the play’s fractured theatricality and emotional unraveling.
Nominated Best Video Design - LA Ovation Award
“Sean Cawelti's integral projection designs define Conrad's new play-within-a-play with not-so-subtle images of Emma screened on Nina's white gown; while his various video imageries of trees and birds (possibly seagulls) play up the whimsy of the Chekov analogies.” - Broadway World
Stupid Fucking Bird, Aaron Posner’s irreverent and emotionally raw reimagining of Chekhov’s The Seagull, is a meta-theatrical dive into art, desire, and disappointment. For Boston Court’s production, Sean Cawelti served as Video Designer, crafting a layered media landscape that mirrored the characters’ inner turmoil and the play’s constant tug-of-war between sincerity and irony.
His design incorporated multiple projectors, digital imagery, and projected motifs that fractured time and space—enhancing the production’s nonlinear energy and drawing audiences into the characters’ unstable emotional worlds. The media did not simply illustrate the story; it deepened it, functioning as both reflection and disruption in a space where performance and authenticity are constantly in question.