About Brendon

Thirty years making rooms where
something real can happen

I am a director, lecturer and facilitator, with over 30 years' experience leading participatory and educational theatre projects in the UK, Europe and West Africa.

I have held posts as Artistic Director of Solent Peoples Theatre, Indefinite Article and First Draft Theatre, and Associate Director at Proteus Theatre and The Haymarket, Basingstoke.

My work as a Theatre for Democracy practitioner has involved private, public, and third sector delivery using participatory theatre techniques to engage communities in complex decision-making processes. These projects involved collaborating with over 75 local authorities across England and Wales, partnering with government departments and NGOs including the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, The Health Care Commission, the European Parliament Education Department, UNHCR and the Electoral Commission.

This work has given me a deep understanding of the public sector landscape and the particular challenges of facilitating meaningful public dialogue on complex and contested issues.

As a playwright, I have written numerous original plays and adaptations, including the first conventional theatre adaptations of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

From 2010 to 2023 I was Head of Department for Applied Theatre and Community Drama at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.

I originally trained as an actor at the Arts Educational School, London, and subsequently completed postgraduate research degrees in Theatre and Education at the University of Middlesex, and in Rhetoric at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Today I work independently under Brendon Burns Associated Endeavours — a solo practice of interconnected endeavours: directing, facilitation, writing, and the ongoing philosophical inquiry that holds it all together. I write about this work in my Substack newsletter, The Philosophical Theatre Facilitator.