Kelley Jo Burke

Sessional Instructor

Contact Info

Area of Focus: Playwriting, Dramaturgy

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“Mad as a boot. Talented. Neurotic. And kind as the day is long.” 

    -Angus Ferguson, AD, Dancing Sky Theatre 

Kelley Jo Burke is a crip playwright, director, actor, editor, a creative nonfiction writer and documentarian, radio producer and broadcaster. Her plays include the award-winning “Rigby,” “Greensleep: a fairytale for the end of days” and “The Curst” (with Library Voices), which had their world premieres spring 2023 and 2024 with Dancing Sky Theatre (DST) in Saskatoon, “Us” (co-creator Jeff Straker, winner of the 2017 Tom Hendry Award for Best New Musical in Canada, Playwrights Guild of Canada), “Ducks on the Moon” (Hagios), "The Selkie Wife" (Scirocco), "Jane's Thumb" (Signature), and "Charming and Rose: True Love (Blizzard).

She dramaturges, directs and produces for stage and radio, and was for many years the host/producer of CBC radio’ SoundXchange. She was 2009 winner of the Saskatchewan Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Leadership in the Arts, the 2023 City of Regina Writing Award (her fourth time receiving that award), and the 2008 Saskatoon and Area Theatre Award for Playwriting. 

She calls her work “traumedy” since most of what she writes teeters between howling with laughter and just howling. 