Theo Seddon
Meet Theo
Who are you?
My name is Theo, I’m a 23 year old comedian, performer and writer. I’m originally from South Yorkshire but grew up mainly in Dubai. I’m also a transgender man and the work I usually create revolves around my experiences in transitioning and becoming a man. I am deeply interested in transgender masculinity and the experiences of transgender men in society, and I make work that aims to use comedy to communicate transgender perspectives in an accessible way.
How did you get here?
I graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland around a year and a half ago. After a year of struggle to find my feet financially and artistically, I wanted to develop my newest performance into a full performance that I could use in my future career. I saw the call out and applied!
What does the concept of sanctuary mean to you?
The concept of sanctuary means a lot of things to me. Currently, I am working semi-full time in a public facing position in the middle of a global pandemic. The people I work with also do not know that I am transgender - this in many parts is because I believe I would be unsafe or made to feel uncomfortable at work if they knew. When I get home and can be fully open and honest with my partner about who I am and how hiding this affects me, I feel I have reached this place of sanctuary. As Queer people there few places that we can feel completely ourselves, and this pandemic has taken a lot of those places away from our community. I have fought my entire life to find someone I can share myself with honestly and not fear that she will leave me because of it, something I think most queer people deal with. It is an absolute privilege to have a place of sanctuary when so many have never had one.
What does your sanctuary look like?
My sanctuary looks like a very small flat in the south side of Glasgow. It has central heating and a dishwasher and a shower with really good water pressure. It has a bed that my grandma and sister helped me pay for and a couch that my best friend lent me the money for. It’s a culmination of a year of struggle to find a comfortable home with my partner, and it makes me extremely happy to live there everyday.
…and what are you doing with Sanctuary Queer Arts?
I am creating DAWN OF MAN - a performance about becoming a man, centring the trans-male experience.
DAWN OF MAN
a performance film by Theo Seddon
Dawn of Man is a trans man’s coming of age story, that focusses on how we learn to become the men we are. It questions who we are as men and who we want to become as men. Theo has been cultivating and researching transgender masculinity for years, trying to understand the place trans men have among other men.
He knows men are very annoying at times, and discussions of male identity are contrite in a performance world that is aching for stories outside of white male narratives. He agrees and he also sick of hearing that narrative.
But there are lovely men, lovely trans men - who have fought to become men, and fight still against men and the misogynistic idea of how they should and do act. Theo has been working with five other trans men, sharing stories and cultivating a community together. Dawn of Man hopes to highlight the perspectives of trans men, to become each others dominate male role model, and to form a community of empathetic and kind men, who are gorgeous.