KELLY BURKE: PORTFOLIO
for Arts Council England consideration
Here's a flavour of my current and previous work, including collaborations with some of the Screaming Twenties creative team.
What the New Work Will Look and Sound Like...
SCREAMING TWENTIES PODCAST
Proof of Concept episode and trailer. The goal is for this podcast to run alongside live performances and tour dates, and to generate audience engagement in between live shows.
with James Sobol Kelly as Jimmy
Podcast copy:
Remember the Roaring Twenties, darling?
When pandemic, war, and capitalism had us on the verge of collapse and we figured — to hell with it, let’s party?
Well, some things never change.
We’re back in the 20s... the Screaming Ones.
Part salon, part cabaret, part dive bar, part utopian experiment, Screaming Twenties picks the brains of artists and activists who are giving the system a run for its money. Join cabaret hostess Mae Riot and her off-beat friends to see how - and if - art will get us through the Screaming Twenties.
What Previous Work Has Looked and Sounded Like...
THEATRE
NATALIE BARNEY'S LAST SALON
'Part audiobook, part drama and part inspirational guide, Burke’s script is beautifully quotable and romantic. Austen-esque and heightened in delivery, this piece is a delight as a listener.'
A YOUNGER THEATRE
NATALIE BARNEY'S LAST SALON was commissioned by Shakespeare's Globe, where it was performed in 2020. The show explores the sensational life of the Parisan-American icon whose legendary literary salon gave birth to Modernism, and whose Sapphic affairs scandalised polite society.
Reading Fringe commissioned an audio drama adaptation during the pandemic.
Themes: Lesbianism; lost women in history; queer family; women championing other women
LOVE FOR SALE - directed by Robert Gross
'A heartfelt and stylish show which is as intelligent as it is decadent.'
THE LIST
'Kelly Burke seems to have come to life from a Henry Miller novel and walked straight onto the set of Casablanca. In this cheap bar with a “cheap pianist” we have an intimate conversation about the human heart — and Burke’s talent is spectacular.'
FRINGE GURU
'Smoky, spiky and intelligently textured.'
FEST
‘This show begs to be watched.’
FRINGE GURU
LOVE FOR SALE is a musical-play which uses songs from the 1930s to tell the story of down-on-her-luck singer navigating sex, poverty, and life abroad.
The show sold out Wilton's Music Hall and the Edinburgh Fringe before transferring to the Soho Theatre, Off-Broadway, where its run was extended twice. It was Critics' Pick in TimeOut NY, who included it on their list of 'Top 10 Things to Do in New York' - just after Hamilton.
You can see the trailer here.
Themes: Class, sex exploitation, urban alienation
ZELDA - directed by Robert Gross
A favourite of critics and audiences alike, ZELDA is about the thwarted ambition and irrepressible creativity of painter, dancer, and writer Zelda Fitzgerald. The show has played everywhere from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the West End, earning rave reviews and an OffWestEnd Award nomination.
Themes: Historical (and contemporary) obstruction of women's art and agency
'An outstanding piece about the agonies of art and the burdens of love.'
WHATS ON STAGE
'Burke is a captivating presence. Her intelligent performance makes Zelda beguiling - positioned on the edge of sanity with admirable restraint. The end arrives with a painful enforcement of the costly price Zelda paid for her life with the great man Fitzgerald. This is a carefully layered piece, superbly performed, that will stay with you far longer than its hour-long duration.'
LONDON MAGAZINE
'Witty, thoughtful and full of subtle nuances, this play about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife is not to be missed. Kelly Burke’s performance as Zelda is a tour de force — enthralling. Burke effortlessly creates this attractive, intelligent heroine, making her sympathetic, enigmatic and engaging in equal measure. Brilliantly written, smoothly staged and superbly acted, Zelda is one of the best hours you will spend this festival.'
THREE WEEKS
'This is a tragic story of excess, unhappiness and wasted potential. Burke plays it with poignant charisma in a beautifully modulated production.'
TIME OUT
'Vivid and fascinating, performed with zestful brilliance.'
THE SPECTATOR
A WHALE IS ITS OWN HOUSE
A WHALE IS ITS OWN HOUSE is a play currently in development, about queer diaspora, urban precarity, and found family.
SHORT FILMS
APOSTROPHE is a pandemic experiment in glitch feminism and text collage: a mash-up of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper', Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties, and Ingeborg Bachmann's Malina. It questions who is speaking when we speak, and explores the intersection between absence, presence, and subversion.
ALL THE DEAD STARS was a writing commission from Blue Goat Theatre, made in collaboration with choreographer Aaron Samuel Davies and composer Augustin Gressier. It's about the nature of distance, love, space-time... and pigeons.
PUBLICATIONS
・2024: 'Intersectional Feminism at Work'
Feminist Theatre: Then and Now
ed. Cheryl Robson, Aurora Metro Press
・2020: 'meditation on a dropped glove'
The Little Review (editor and contributor)
published by L'Air Arts
・2019: 'Beyond #MeToo: Navigating the Grey Area'
Actors and Performers Yearbook
ed. Lloyd Trott, Bloomsbury Press
・2017: 'Question Time'
Equity Magazine