Christopher Burney

Christopher Burney is a Tony-Nominated Producer, Educator, Dramaturg, Creative Consultant and Puppeteer.

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 currently on faculty at Columbia University and Fordham University. He serves on the New York State Alliance for Arts Education. He has also taught at Marymount College, CLS at Marist University, The Dalton School, 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.

As an advocate for regional and community based theater in his home area of the Hudson Valley, he has served on the Poughkeepsie NY Arts and Action Committee, Poughkeepsie Rising (the areas first theater dedicated to supporting local artists), the LaBB (Beacon NY’s first organization dedicated to supporting area professional theater artists), and the Arts and Education Advocacy Commission of Upstate NY. He was recently appointed to the Poughkeepsie Public Arts Commission.

He is also the founder of Original Artists Consulting, a creative consultancy that supports theatermakers, arts organizations, and institutions in developing bold, original work with a focus on strategic planning, creative producing, and institutional advising. www.originalartists.org

Recent and upcoming theatrical work includes: Rise, a new musical based on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Dramaturg), Whitman: An American Celebration (Dramaturg), 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 and Faena/Miami; 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 and How We Got Here. These series are 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, historical documents and other first-hand sources.

He is a graduate of Brandeis University, B.A., and Columbia University, M.F.A.