Christopher Burney
[email protected]
917-733-9298
Class Taught 2024-25
- Text Analysis
About
Christopher Burney is a Tony-Nominated Producer, Educator, Dramaturg and Creative Consultant.
He served as the Artistic Director of New York Stage and Film where he guided the company through the COVID pandemic, creating new programs and partnerships that supported over 600 artists and expanded the company’s place in the Hudson Valley.
For over 20 years he worked with New York’s Second Stage Theatre as Artistic Producer. Highlights of the over 120 productions he shepherded include: 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner Between Riverside and Crazy; 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes;; Dear Evan Hansen by Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul; The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage; Trust and Lonely, I’m Not by Paul Weitz; The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz; Everyday Rapture by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott; Let Me Down Easy by Anna Deavere Smith; Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl; The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane; Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin; Jitney by August Wilson; Jar the Floor by Cheryl L. West; Crowns by Regina Taylor; Saturday Night by Stephen Sondheim; Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo’s Greatest Hits by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy; and Tiny Alice by Edward Albee. As a champion of emerging artists, he has launched the careers of Rajiv Joseph, Leslye Headland, Michael Golamco, Chisa Hutchison, Kenneth Lin, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Brooke Berman, Adam Bock, among many others.
An advocate for the importance of fostering future generations of theater artists and practitioners, he is on faculty at Columbia University where he teaches creative producing. He currently serves on the New York State Alliance for Arts Education. Recently he has taught at Marymount College, The Dalton School, and Fordham University. He has lectured at Barnard College, The Einhorn School for the Performing Arts at Primary Stages, The Juilliard School, Bard College, The Boston School of Music, and the New England Theatre Conference.
From 2019-2024 he served as a member of the Tony Awards Nominating Committee.
He has served on numerous award and residency programs including NEA Theater Panels, New York State Council on the Arts, Lortel Awards, The Horton Foote Prize, The Jerome Fellowship, Athena Film Festival’s Chinonye Chukwu Emerging Writer Award , The Barbara Whitman Early Career Directing Award, The Hermitage Theater Residencies and Major Theater Award, and The Playwrights Center Core Writers Program.
Recent theatrical work includes: Madwomen of the West by Sandra Tsing Loh (Creative Consultant) at Actors’ Temple NYC and Riverside Studios, London; South by Florencia Iriondo (Dramaturg / Creative Consultant) at Soho Playhouse NYC; White Girl in Danger by Michael R. Jackson (Creative Consultant) at Second Stage Theater, Beyond the Curves (Creative Consultant) at Gallery 40, Meet Me in Buenos Aires (Dramaturg) by Florencia Iriondo at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Among his other creative endeavors, he created and produced American Scoreboard with conceiver and producer Fran Kirmser. AMERICAN SCOREBOARD is dedicated to the dissemination of information related to current political, social and justice issues facing every citizen of the United States through performances of transcripts, documents and other first-hand sources.
He is a graduate of Brandeis University, B.A., and Columbia University, M.F.A.
* current as of August 2024