Picture by Buck Lewis
Claire-Frances Sullivan (she/her) is an actor, singer, musician, composer/lyricist, playwright, and educator.
New York City based and rural Michigan bred, she graduated from Central Michigan University with a BFA in Musical Theatre Performance.
You may know her as Claire-Frances, CF, or Frankie, depending on the setting.
As a playwright, lyricist, and composer, Claire-Frances is currently writing book and lyrics for the original musicals, Impossible Green with music by Sequoia Sellinger and What Happens After with music by Sarah Nelson, and is helping Eliana Pipes out with lyrics and music for her play ¡NAILS!: A Happy Gay Latina Play in development with the Rorschach Theatre. Claire-Frances has had work produced by and/or developed at The York Theatre Company, The Workshop Theater Company, The Powerhouse Theater, Midland Center for the Arts, The Pulp Stage Theatre Company, Festival 56, The Rorschach Theatre, and The Bread and Roses Theater. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and is a lyricist with the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. Claire-Frances's original musical, Fostered Love, was the recipient of the Kennedy Center's National Musical Theatre award through the Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards in 2018.
As a performer, Claire-Frances is currently singing lots of music for her peers in the BMI workshop and lending her voice to several demo recordings of new work. She's stayed busy through quarantine performing in the virtual readings of Undecided, by Stephanie Carlin, and Impossible Green, her own project with The York Theatre Company. When live theatre was safe, Claire-Frances was last seen in New York City at the Signature Theatre Company and TheaterLab, and regionally in the mountains of Alaska with the Alaska Cabin Nite Dinner Theatre.
As an educator, Claire-Frances teaches private lessons to youth from under-served communities through the Musical Mentors Collaborative. She teaches private singing, songwriting, piano, and guitar lessons and has led workshops on songwriting and storytelling through music to larger groups with MMC and their affiliated organizations. CF absolutely loves teaching and if you're looking for private lessons on a three-pronged approach of songwriting, singing, and playing an instrument, send her an email!
As a person, when she’s not making things, Claire-Frances loves spoiling her two cats, reading books on radical leftist revolutionary thought, tending to her family of plants (as well as spending time with her human family), hiking, puzzles, going to the beach, learning about space, playing Stardew Valley, doing Bob Ross painting tutorials (badly), and playing board games.
Claire-Frances is the founder of "CF's Writer's Roundtable", a writing group that meets once a week. Check out some of their work here!
Whatever the medium, Claire-Frances is dedicated to making art that imagines the way the world could be.
You may have seen her at the Open Jar Institute for Musical Theater, at the Powerhouse Theater Training Company as a playwriting apprentice, or at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in residence as a playwright observer.
Follow her on instagram: @clairellelogram
