"It says a lot about a designer when you walk into the theater and immediately know who designed the set. Sean Fanning excels with office-like environments, but this bar has an ebb and flow to it that keeps the table the women are at from becoming claustrophobic. Omar Ramos’ constant track of background voices makes the airport seem more realistic, but he never makes its hum distracting or annoying. Ross Glanc’s lights are like a mood ring, shifting to reflect the emotions in each scene."
-Patricia Morris Buckley, San Diego Uptown News, Walter Cronkite is Dead, San Diego Repertory Theatre
"Director Shana Wride does an outstanding job of staging her two female actors in, on, and around Sean Fanning’s sleek and sterile airport terminal set. And Valerie Henderson’s costumes are an appropriate study in contrast, while sound designer Omar Ramos provides some funny and fitting overhead announcements that add a nice touch to the airplane motif."
-Donnie Matsuda, ArtsNFashion.com, Walter Cronkite is Dead, San Diego Repertory Theatre
"Sean Fanning’s set — a cocktail table with a perimeter of armchairs and scattered luggage — and Ross Glanc’s fluorescent-look lighting evoke every airport around the globe."
-Janice Steinberg, San Diego Union Tribune, Walter Cronkite is Dead, San Diego Repertory Theatre
"Cygnet Theatre artistic director Sean Murray has moved away from the camp and back to the noir sendup. The set, in fact, ingeniously designed by Sean Fanning, is all black and white and gray, as are Shirley Pierson’s killer costumes. The only onstage color is the brilliant green of the ever-expanding plant, a magnificent, size-sequenced series of puppets imported from Monkey Boy Productions in Pennsylvania; and the blood-red spangles on the Supremes-like trio that serves as Greek chorus and seems complicit in the plight of poor, hapless Seymour."
-Pat Launer, KSDS 88.3 FM, Little Shop of Horrors, Cygnet Theatre
"[Sean] Murray shipped in a quartet of brightly colored plant puppets from the East Coast, and they really pop against Sean Fanning's excellent, multidimensional black and white set and Shirley Pierson's mostly colorless costumes."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, Little Shop of Horrors, Cygnet Theatre
"On Sean Fanning’s soot-clogged, Skid Row set, everything’s a shade of gray, even the flowers (which look like they just came from their own funeral). In a Kansas-to-Oz flip, the carnivorous plant, Audrey II, is in Technicolor."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, Little Shop of Horrors, Cygnet Theatre
“The actual band, high up in Sean Fanning’s gorgeously decayed two-tiered set, performs the John Kander/Fred Ebb score with polka-accented brio under Billy Thompson’s direction.”
-James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune, Cabaret, Cygnet Theatre
“A first look at Sean Fanning’s set tips the production’s hand. Instead of perky colors and showbiz élan, grime-stained walls, tawdry glitter curtains, and faded paint reveal that this Kit Kat Klub isn’t a fashionable watering hole where the moneyed dally with decadence. The joint is long in the tooth. Nobody’s slumming here. It’s a place (reminiscent of Tennessee Williams’s Camino Real) where people go who are already gone. The party’s over; the remaining guests are just too spent to make it home.”
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, Cabaret, Cygnet Theatre
"The show has a nice cohesive design. Sean Fanning's huge, gone-to-seed nightclub set is garishly lit by Chris Rynne, who extends strings of bulbs over the audience, effectively making them a part of the Kit Kat Klub experience."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, Cabaret, Cygnet Theatre.
"A nice touch is Sean Fanning's simple but evocative set, featuring a palazzo-tiled floor deeply fissured by Leontes' jealousy and suspicions."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, The Winter's Tale, Old Globe/USD MFA Program.
"Sean Fanning, also a Resident Artist, has designed a series of marvelous sets based on a stationary background of artfully arranged doors, fences, windows, and siding, against which he places the setting of the particular play, a table for Table Manners, a living room for Living Together, and a garden for Round and Round The Garden. The sets are complimented by the lighting design by Michelle Caron, the costume designs of Jeanne Reith, and the sound design of George Ye."
-Robert Machray, blogcritics.org, The Norman Conquests at the Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning's multipurpose, white-washed architectural set blends indoor/outdoor looks so it works for all three plays."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, The Norman Conquests at the Cygnet Theatre
"This is one of those productions where the designers should join the cast in taking curtain calls. Sean Fanning’s set — largely a wall of soot-covered bricks and metal stairways evoking 19th-century London — is especially commendable because it creatively differs from the usual Sweeney two-level design, Todd’s parlor above Lovett’s shop. Taking advantage of the under-stage pit in the Old Town Theatre and a couple of trap doors, the set allows the (in)famous sliding of bodies from barber chair to pie shop."
-Don Braunagel, sandiego.com, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"So ideally suited to the renovated Old Town Theatre space is this production of Sweeney that credit must go to the incredible team of designers who made this Victorian horror story palpably scary. Eric Lotze’s moody lighting seemed to come from everywhere and, along with Sean Fanning’s multi-level set that used every inch of the stage, managed to move the story from locale to locale and back again in a smoothly orchestrated fashion. As the story picked up momentum in the second act, I began to feel I was on a ride through a nightmarish fun house."
-Walter M. Mayes, The Broadway Critic, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre
"Special kudos go to set designer Sean Fanning, whose set transforms the old theater into a work of art. His industrial design is elaborate and well-weathered and, like the show itself, exceptional."
-Jose A. Lopez, Pomerado News, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"Eric Lotze’s lighting brings its own kind of music, paired with Sean Fanning’s arresting and inventive, industrial-minded sets."
-James Hebert, San Diego Union Tribune, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"Sean Fanning's dark, Dickensian locale is all dripping grey walls, iron catwalks and smoking cityscapes, while Eric Lotze's exceptional lighting spatters the scenes with claustrophobic shadows, flickering gaslight and the occasional candle flame."
-Anne Marie Welsh, North County Times, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"Under the masterful direction of Murray and James Vasquez, Cygnet’s Sweeney Todd abandons the customary unwieldy revolving barber’s shop set for a suitably dark, extremely versatile, terrific multilevel design by Sean Fanning, one that lets the audience’s imagination take the place of burly stagehands moving around that behemoth of a set piece.
A stage floor-level grating opens up to reveal for the first time the imposing figure of Sweeney, later to allow smoke to rise from Mrs. Lovett’s oven to the streets of London, and at one point so that severed human limbs can be thrown up onstage to deliciously ghastly effect. A second-story bridge proves useful for several scenes, but both Mrs. Lovett’s bakery and Sweeney’s upstairs barber shop are at stage level, Murray and Vasquez’s imaginative staging making it perfectly clear just where we are situated at any time."
-Steven Stanley, StageSceneLA, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"Noises Off requires an elaborate, two-story turntable set capable of withstanding hundreds of door slams, a tumble or two down the stairs and various other forms of abuse. Sean Fanning's detailed set is both sturdy and compact, and it's been well-engineered to turn on a dime."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, Noises Off at the Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning's elegantly revolving set earned its own applause on opening weekend. Like this giddily entertaining show, it makes a memorable turn."
-James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune, Noises Off at the Cygnet Theatre
"Eric Lotze does wonders with a suffused, sepia-esque lighting that turns to dappled sun when Sean Fanning's cleverly shifting set transforms from shop to home."
-James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"The design (Sean Fanning) is splendid, with its grungy, grimy shop rotating smartly into the sisters’ nondescript living room."
-Pat Launer, SDNN, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"George Ye’s fight choreography, some of the best around here in many a moon, turns Sean Fanning’s inventive two-way set into a danger zone, especially when Sterling doesn’t have his way."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning’s set is effectively adaptable to the script’s two locations — the cluttered cabinets of Phil’s office get swung open to reveal the sisters’ large French windows — with Eric Lotze’s lighting appropriate for both places. "
-Don Braunagel, sandiego.com, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning has created another extraordinary set, whose movable panels (manipulated by the actors themselves between scenes) effectively transform from Philip’s shop to the home of Jackie’s and Mary’s mother and back."
-Zenger's Newsmagazine, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"Among the messages scrawled on Sean Fanning's suitably bleak set by the graffiti artists of the local Writerz Blok collective are the simple words “No regrets.” That's not quite the same as saying “No hard feelings.” Looming over the makeshift altars to the fallen, the phrase seems a cruel but honest acknowledgment of what it takes to carry on."
-James Hebert, The San Diego Union Tribune, KINGDOM at the Old Globe.
"A lot of credit for all this goes to the decor. Sean Fanning’s vast Victorian set grandly contains everything from intimate pillow talk to crashing seas, helped immensely by Tom Christ’s simple but powerful animated projections and the exquisite lighting design of Matthew Novotny."
-Welton Jones, sandiego.com, A Christmas Carol at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town
"Sean Fanning's multileveled set at Cygnet has the right cheerless atmosphere, swiftly enlivened by a few props and Christ's snowy projections. The designers have obviously worked hand-in-glove to create the atmospheric shifts"
-Anne-Marie Welsh, North County Times, A Christmas Carol at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.
"The set (Sean Fanning) is dark and eerie and looming, beautifully lit by Matthew Novotny, with added animation from Tom Christ."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, A Christmas Carol at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town
"Amanda Cooley-Davis's Ghost of Christmas Past rises from the basement, of Sean Fanning's appropriately grim Victorian set, as a cold, white icicle..."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, A Christmas Carol at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.
"Sean Fanning's photorealistic office has such a lived-in quality it must have been there before they built the theater."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning's office set is as luxurious as it is anonymous (save for the theater's signature cygnet swans on the smoked glass doors)."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"The desk is a stylish semi circular one faced with dark wood with a black granite-like top. There are file cabinets and office accoutrement in back of it. It sits in the center of the stage and is the focal point of all the comings and goings.
Her high leather desk chair, not to her liking but it was left by the last person in that job, swivels and on one side of the office is a glass table covered with magazines and with a chair for waiting. In back of the table are handsome floor to ceiling dark wood storage cabinets and on the other side of the desk are double glass doors leading to the outside halls of whatever building they occupy. All this is the work of set designer Sean Fanning who masterfully designed an office fit for a queen (bee)."
-Carol Davis, San Diego Jewish World, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"Also of note: the set. The reception-area centerpiece twirls around, the frosted-glass office doors, when opened, give the briefest glimpse of a fake plant in a lobby. Very authentic. Kudos as well to Eric Lotze's dynamic lighting design and Sean Murray's en pointe directing: The actors hit their emotional marks."
-Keli Dailey, San Diego Union Tribune, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"When one enters the theatre, one’s first sight is an extraordinarily realistic set for a reception desk at a high-class office space, expertly designed by Sean Fanning. In line with the theatre company’s name, which means “baby swan,” swan motifs abound in the set design, from the logo of the enterprise represented to the multiple toy swans and other birds supplied by properties designer Bonnie L. Durben to adorn the set and represent the tastes of the title character, receptionist Beverly Wilkins (Melinda Gilb)."
-Mark Gablish-Conran, Zenger's Newsmagazine, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"Dynamically directed by Sean Murray, its suggestion of a richly romantic Swedish midsummer amongst the wealthy is glitteringly created...an agile, deeply enticing, and evocative scenic design by Sean Fanning..."
-George Weinberg-Harter, sandiego.com, A Little Night Music at Cygnet Theatre
"The cast performs on Sean Fanning's spare, gaslit stage, at the rear of which a forest of white birch tree trunks rise behind a scrim: an apt locale for unstable lovers to get lost and, owing to the alchemy of a summer night, quite possibly find longings fulfilled."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, A Little Night Music at Cygnet Theatre
"The set (designed by recent Patté Award winner Sean Fanning) is all luxe-minimalism, with lovely, projected, white-birch trees upstage (looking decidedly three-dimensional) and pillar-sporting wall-sconces on the sides, beautifully lit (Matthew Novotny)."
-Pat Launer, SD Theatre Scene, A Little Night Music at Cygnet Theatre
"Matthew Novotny's evocative lighting captures the unsettling air of perpetual summer twilight; Jeanne Reith's flamboyant costumes are top-notch (sometimes over the top), and Sean Fanning's set makes inventive use of a birch forest."
-James Hebert, San Diego Union Tribune, A Little Night Music at Cygnet Theatre
"Impressively designed as a valentine of gilded frames receding into impressionistic scenes by newcomer Sean Fanning, director Sean Murray's production (unlike the "Hello, Dolly!" musical it inspired) strikes a nice balance between three sets of young lovebirds, and the meddling matchmaker stalking her own crochety prey, Horace Vandergelder."
-Anne-Marie Welsh, San Diego Union Tribune, The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"Certainly some Seans are doing their parts. See the Cygnet Theatre's new production of "The Matchmaker," for which Sean Murray has provided direction both deft and inspired and Sean Fanning has contributed a set that might be the best we'll see anywhere this season. Yes, anywhere. Big budgeteers beware. Cygnet makes every dollar count by coating it with taste, imagination, and savvy. Murray has a terrific cast, excellent wigs, appropriate costumes, acceptable sound and no-problem lights. But let me talk for a moment about that set...There are four acts, each with a separate period (1888) interior. As the show began, actors shoved assorted chairs and barrels in before the perky little act curtain framed by lush painted main drapes and I assumed everything would be minimalized right there. Oh no. Every scene has its own drop, behind that act curtain, each lusciously painted with a dash of forced perspective and a candy-color palette that salutes ole-time realism while strutting confidently in more casual directions. A splendid allotment of resources and a clarion call for any producer seeking the hottest new scenic designer in town. Write down Sean Fanning."
-Welton Jones, sandiego.com, on The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"To reflect the play's old-fashioned style--- with the characters breaking the fourth wall to share their thoughts with the audience--- Murray's production has the feel of a melodrama with flickering gaslamp lighting by Eric Lotze, a rollicking ragtime sound design by George Ye, period-perfect costuming by Jeanne Reith, and a vaudeville-theater set design by Sean Fanning."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"Instead of locating a period play now, he [Murray] does the reverse: he puts The Matchmaker in its period, the 1880's, scenic designer Sean Fanning creates a wondrous music hall set (with striking, one-point perspective drops for each act), and the actors perform in a broad 1880's style. This is how they would have done it."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"An amusing forced perspective that makes the entire, oversized school portal loom above, leaning way back, looking for all the world like the whole edifice might topple over from its own overbearing weight."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, Zombie Prom at San Diego State University
"The production looks lovely, with its series of faux-gilt, angel-adorned borders framing the stage, leading the eye back to a sequence of colorful, painterly backdrops that establish each locale. Scenic designer Sean Fanning is a second-year MFA candidate at SDSU, and we'll all be lucky if this Northern Californian chooses to stay down South after he graduates."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"The set (created by Sean Fanning, a 2nd year MFA student who recently designed The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre) was a changeable rustic-wood array of platforms and billboards, sand and water, attractively lit (by Maureen Hanratty) in golden, dusty, or sepia tones."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, The Grapes of Wrath at San Diego State University
"The set by Sean Fanning is all neon signs and courtroom scenes, excellently lit by Melissa Lewis."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, The People v. Mona at San Diego State University
"The rustic scenery, by Sean Fanning, seemed promising enough, with its multiple levels and its dominant "Rancho Gibichung" sign over the corral containing a four-piece cowboy band presided over by the excellent Cris O'Bryon."
-Welton Jones, sandiego.com, Das Barbecu at the Theatre in Old Town
-Patricia Morris Buckley, San Diego Uptown News, Walter Cronkite is Dead, San Diego Repertory Theatre
"Director Shana Wride does an outstanding job of staging her two female actors in, on, and around Sean Fanning’s sleek and sterile airport terminal set. And Valerie Henderson’s costumes are an appropriate study in contrast, while sound designer Omar Ramos provides some funny and fitting overhead announcements that add a nice touch to the airplane motif."
-Donnie Matsuda, ArtsNFashion.com, Walter Cronkite is Dead, San Diego Repertory Theatre
"Sean Fanning’s set — a cocktail table with a perimeter of armchairs and scattered luggage — and Ross Glanc’s fluorescent-look lighting evoke every airport around the globe."
-Janice Steinberg, San Diego Union Tribune, Walter Cronkite is Dead, San Diego Repertory Theatre
"Cygnet Theatre artistic director Sean Murray has moved away from the camp and back to the noir sendup. The set, in fact, ingeniously designed by Sean Fanning, is all black and white and gray, as are Shirley Pierson’s killer costumes. The only onstage color is the brilliant green of the ever-expanding plant, a magnificent, size-sequenced series of puppets imported from Monkey Boy Productions in Pennsylvania; and the blood-red spangles on the Supremes-like trio that serves as Greek chorus and seems complicit in the plight of poor, hapless Seymour."
-Pat Launer, KSDS 88.3 FM, Little Shop of Horrors, Cygnet Theatre
"[Sean] Murray shipped in a quartet of brightly colored plant puppets from the East Coast, and they really pop against Sean Fanning's excellent, multidimensional black and white set and Shirley Pierson's mostly colorless costumes."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, Little Shop of Horrors, Cygnet Theatre
"On Sean Fanning’s soot-clogged, Skid Row set, everything’s a shade of gray, even the flowers (which look like they just came from their own funeral). In a Kansas-to-Oz flip, the carnivorous plant, Audrey II, is in Technicolor."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, Little Shop of Horrors, Cygnet Theatre
“The actual band, high up in Sean Fanning’s gorgeously decayed two-tiered set, performs the John Kander/Fred Ebb score with polka-accented brio under Billy Thompson’s direction.”
-James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune, Cabaret, Cygnet Theatre
“A first look at Sean Fanning’s set tips the production’s hand. Instead of perky colors and showbiz élan, grime-stained walls, tawdry glitter curtains, and faded paint reveal that this Kit Kat Klub isn’t a fashionable watering hole where the moneyed dally with decadence. The joint is long in the tooth. Nobody’s slumming here. It’s a place (reminiscent of Tennessee Williams’s Camino Real) where people go who are already gone. The party’s over; the remaining guests are just too spent to make it home.”
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, Cabaret, Cygnet Theatre
"The show has a nice cohesive design. Sean Fanning's huge, gone-to-seed nightclub set is garishly lit by Chris Rynne, who extends strings of bulbs over the audience, effectively making them a part of the Kit Kat Klub experience."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, Cabaret, Cygnet Theatre.
"A nice touch is Sean Fanning's simple but evocative set, featuring a palazzo-tiled floor deeply fissured by Leontes' jealousy and suspicions."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, The Winter's Tale, Old Globe/USD MFA Program.
"Sean Fanning, also a Resident Artist, has designed a series of marvelous sets based on a stationary background of artfully arranged doors, fences, windows, and siding, against which he places the setting of the particular play, a table for Table Manners, a living room for Living Together, and a garden for Round and Round The Garden. The sets are complimented by the lighting design by Michelle Caron, the costume designs of Jeanne Reith, and the sound design of George Ye."
-Robert Machray, blogcritics.org, The Norman Conquests at the Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning's multipurpose, white-washed architectural set blends indoor/outdoor looks so it works for all three plays."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, The Norman Conquests at the Cygnet Theatre
"This is one of those productions where the designers should join the cast in taking curtain calls. Sean Fanning’s set — largely a wall of soot-covered bricks and metal stairways evoking 19th-century London — is especially commendable because it creatively differs from the usual Sweeney two-level design, Todd’s parlor above Lovett’s shop. Taking advantage of the under-stage pit in the Old Town Theatre and a couple of trap doors, the set allows the (in)famous sliding of bodies from barber chair to pie shop."
-Don Braunagel, sandiego.com, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"So ideally suited to the renovated Old Town Theatre space is this production of Sweeney that credit must go to the incredible team of designers who made this Victorian horror story palpably scary. Eric Lotze’s moody lighting seemed to come from everywhere and, along with Sean Fanning’s multi-level set that used every inch of the stage, managed to move the story from locale to locale and back again in a smoothly orchestrated fashion. As the story picked up momentum in the second act, I began to feel I was on a ride through a nightmarish fun house."
-Walter M. Mayes, The Broadway Critic, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre
"Special kudos go to set designer Sean Fanning, whose set transforms the old theater into a work of art. His industrial design is elaborate and well-weathered and, like the show itself, exceptional."
-Jose A. Lopez, Pomerado News, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"Eric Lotze’s lighting brings its own kind of music, paired with Sean Fanning’s arresting and inventive, industrial-minded sets."
-James Hebert, San Diego Union Tribune, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"Sean Fanning's dark, Dickensian locale is all dripping grey walls, iron catwalks and smoking cityscapes, while Eric Lotze's exceptional lighting spatters the scenes with claustrophobic shadows, flickering gaslight and the occasional candle flame."
-Anne Marie Welsh, North County Times, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"Under the masterful direction of Murray and James Vasquez, Cygnet’s Sweeney Todd abandons the customary unwieldy revolving barber’s shop set for a suitably dark, extremely versatile, terrific multilevel design by Sean Fanning, one that lets the audience’s imagination take the place of burly stagehands moving around that behemoth of a set piece.
A stage floor-level grating opens up to reveal for the first time the imposing figure of Sweeney, later to allow smoke to rise from Mrs. Lovett’s oven to the streets of London, and at one point so that severed human limbs can be thrown up onstage to deliciously ghastly effect. A second-story bridge proves useful for several scenes, but both Mrs. Lovett’s bakery and Sweeney’s upstairs barber shop are at stage level, Murray and Vasquez’s imaginative staging making it perfectly clear just where we are situated at any time."
-Steven Stanley, StageSceneLA, Sweeney Todd at the Cygnet Theatre.
"Noises Off requires an elaborate, two-story turntable set capable of withstanding hundreds of door slams, a tumble or two down the stairs and various other forms of abuse. Sean Fanning's detailed set is both sturdy and compact, and it's been well-engineered to turn on a dime."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, Noises Off at the Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning's elegantly revolving set earned its own applause on opening weekend. Like this giddily entertaining show, it makes a memorable turn."
-James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune, Noises Off at the Cygnet Theatre
"Eric Lotze does wonders with a suffused, sepia-esque lighting that turns to dappled sun when Sean Fanning's cleverly shifting set transforms from shop to home."
-James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"The design (Sean Fanning) is splendid, with its grungy, grimy shop rotating smartly into the sisters’ nondescript living room."
-Pat Launer, SDNN, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"George Ye’s fight choreography, some of the best around here in many a moon, turns Sean Fanning’s inventive two-way set into a danger zone, especially when Sterling doesn’t have his way."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning’s set is effectively adaptable to the script’s two locations — the cluttered cabinets of Phil’s office get swung open to reveal the sisters’ large French windows — with Eric Lotze’s lighting appropriate for both places. "
-Don Braunagel, sandiego.com, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning has created another extraordinary set, whose movable panels (manipulated by the actors themselves between scenes) effectively transform from Philip’s shop to the home of Jackie’s and Mary’s mother and back."
-Zenger's Newsmagazine, Mauritius at the Cygnet Theatre
"Among the messages scrawled on Sean Fanning's suitably bleak set by the graffiti artists of the local Writerz Blok collective are the simple words “No regrets.” That's not quite the same as saying “No hard feelings.” Looming over the makeshift altars to the fallen, the phrase seems a cruel but honest acknowledgment of what it takes to carry on."
-James Hebert, The San Diego Union Tribune, KINGDOM at the Old Globe.
"A lot of credit for all this goes to the decor. Sean Fanning’s vast Victorian set grandly contains everything from intimate pillow talk to crashing seas, helped immensely by Tom Christ’s simple but powerful animated projections and the exquisite lighting design of Matthew Novotny."
-Welton Jones, sandiego.com, A Christmas Carol at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town
"Sean Fanning's multileveled set at Cygnet has the right cheerless atmosphere, swiftly enlivened by a few props and Christ's snowy projections. The designers have obviously worked hand-in-glove to create the atmospheric shifts"
-Anne-Marie Welsh, North County Times, A Christmas Carol at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.
"The set (Sean Fanning) is dark and eerie and looming, beautifully lit by Matthew Novotny, with added animation from Tom Christ."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, A Christmas Carol at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town
"Amanda Cooley-Davis's Ghost of Christmas Past rises from the basement, of Sean Fanning's appropriately grim Victorian set, as a cold, white icicle..."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, A Christmas Carol at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.
"Sean Fanning's photorealistic office has such a lived-in quality it must have been there before they built the theater."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"Sean Fanning's office set is as luxurious as it is anonymous (save for the theater's signature cygnet swans on the smoked glass doors)."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"The desk is a stylish semi circular one faced with dark wood with a black granite-like top. There are file cabinets and office accoutrement in back of it. It sits in the center of the stage and is the focal point of all the comings and goings.
Her high leather desk chair, not to her liking but it was left by the last person in that job, swivels and on one side of the office is a glass table covered with magazines and with a chair for waiting. In back of the table are handsome floor to ceiling dark wood storage cabinets and on the other side of the desk are double glass doors leading to the outside halls of whatever building they occupy. All this is the work of set designer Sean Fanning who masterfully designed an office fit for a queen (bee)."
-Carol Davis, San Diego Jewish World, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"Also of note: the set. The reception-area centerpiece twirls around, the frosted-glass office doors, when opened, give the briefest glimpse of a fake plant in a lobby. Very authentic. Kudos as well to Eric Lotze's dynamic lighting design and Sean Murray's en pointe directing: The actors hit their emotional marks."
-Keli Dailey, San Diego Union Tribune, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"When one enters the theatre, one’s first sight is an extraordinarily realistic set for a reception desk at a high-class office space, expertly designed by Sean Fanning. In line with the theatre company’s name, which means “baby swan,” swan motifs abound in the set design, from the logo of the enterprise represented to the multiple toy swans and other birds supplied by properties designer Bonnie L. Durben to adorn the set and represent the tastes of the title character, receptionist Beverly Wilkins (Melinda Gilb)."
-Mark Gablish-Conran, Zenger's Newsmagazine, The Receptionist at Cygnet Theatre
"Dynamically directed by Sean Murray, its suggestion of a richly romantic Swedish midsummer amongst the wealthy is glitteringly created...an agile, deeply enticing, and evocative scenic design by Sean Fanning..."
-George Weinberg-Harter, sandiego.com, A Little Night Music at Cygnet Theatre
"The cast performs on Sean Fanning's spare, gaslit stage, at the rear of which a forest of white birch tree trunks rise behind a scrim: an apt locale for unstable lovers to get lost and, owing to the alchemy of a summer night, quite possibly find longings fulfilled."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, A Little Night Music at Cygnet Theatre
"The set (designed by recent Patté Award winner Sean Fanning) is all luxe-minimalism, with lovely, projected, white-birch trees upstage (looking decidedly three-dimensional) and pillar-sporting wall-sconces on the sides, beautifully lit (Matthew Novotny)."
-Pat Launer, SD Theatre Scene, A Little Night Music at Cygnet Theatre
"Matthew Novotny's evocative lighting captures the unsettling air of perpetual summer twilight; Jeanne Reith's flamboyant costumes are top-notch (sometimes over the top), and Sean Fanning's set makes inventive use of a birch forest."
-James Hebert, San Diego Union Tribune, A Little Night Music at Cygnet Theatre
"Impressively designed as a valentine of gilded frames receding into impressionistic scenes by newcomer Sean Fanning, director Sean Murray's production (unlike the "Hello, Dolly!" musical it inspired) strikes a nice balance between three sets of young lovebirds, and the meddling matchmaker stalking her own crochety prey, Horace Vandergelder."
-Anne-Marie Welsh, San Diego Union Tribune, The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"Certainly some Seans are doing their parts. See the Cygnet Theatre's new production of "The Matchmaker," for which Sean Murray has provided direction both deft and inspired and Sean Fanning has contributed a set that might be the best we'll see anywhere this season. Yes, anywhere. Big budgeteers beware. Cygnet makes every dollar count by coating it with taste, imagination, and savvy. Murray has a terrific cast, excellent wigs, appropriate costumes, acceptable sound and no-problem lights. But let me talk for a moment about that set...There are four acts, each with a separate period (1888) interior. As the show began, actors shoved assorted chairs and barrels in before the perky little act curtain framed by lush painted main drapes and I assumed everything would be minimalized right there. Oh no. Every scene has its own drop, behind that act curtain, each lusciously painted with a dash of forced perspective and a candy-color palette that salutes ole-time realism while strutting confidently in more casual directions. A splendid allotment of resources and a clarion call for any producer seeking the hottest new scenic designer in town. Write down Sean Fanning."
-Welton Jones, sandiego.com, on The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"To reflect the play's old-fashioned style--- with the characters breaking the fourth wall to share their thoughts with the audience--- Murray's production has the feel of a melodrama with flickering gaslamp lighting by Eric Lotze, a rollicking ragtime sound design by George Ye, period-perfect costuming by Jeanne Reith, and a vaudeville-theater set design by Sean Fanning."
-Pam Kragen, North County Times, The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"Instead of locating a period play now, he [Murray] does the reverse: he puts The Matchmaker in its period, the 1880's, scenic designer Sean Fanning creates a wondrous music hall set (with striking, one-point perspective drops for each act), and the actors perform in a broad 1880's style. This is how they would have done it."
-Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader, The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"An amusing forced perspective that makes the entire, oversized school portal loom above, leaning way back, looking for all the world like the whole edifice might topple over from its own overbearing weight."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, Zombie Prom at San Diego State University
"The production looks lovely, with its series of faux-gilt, angel-adorned borders framing the stage, leading the eye back to a sequence of colorful, painterly backdrops that establish each locale. Scenic designer Sean Fanning is a second-year MFA candidate at SDSU, and we'll all be lucky if this Northern Californian chooses to stay down South after he graduates."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre
"The set (created by Sean Fanning, a 2nd year MFA student who recently designed The Matchmaker at Cygnet Theatre) was a changeable rustic-wood array of platforms and billboards, sand and water, attractively lit (by Maureen Hanratty) in golden, dusty, or sepia tones."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, The Grapes of Wrath at San Diego State University
"The set by Sean Fanning is all neon signs and courtroom scenes, excellently lit by Melissa Lewis."
-Pat Launer, Curtain Calls, The People v. Mona at San Diego State University
"The rustic scenery, by Sean Fanning, seemed promising enough, with its multiple levels and its dominant "Rancho Gibichung" sign over the corral containing a four-piece cowboy band presided over by the excellent Cris O'Bryon."
-Welton Jones, sandiego.com, Das Barbecu at the Theatre in Old Town
