Bluestocking Productions
Coaching theatre & film actors, directors, teachers, and writers on sharpening their skills for a post-pandemic career.
About the Name: The Blue Stockings Society was a women's social and educational movement in England in the mid-18th century, emphasizing education and mutual cooperation.
Christine McBurney, Artistic Director
The Story
After teaching full-time for 20 years, acting & directing part-time, and co-founding and co-leading Mamaí Theatre Company for five seasons of award-winning productions, I do not want to wait to create. Even as a busy freelance actor, director, and teacher (even in a pandemic), I still miss having an artistic home and so I have created Bluestocking Productions as a place where my teaching & coaching and my own creative work can feed each other. The goal is to ultimately collaborate and produce works in the post-pandemic world. Theatre, film...who knows... Click here to schedule a session.
“Thoughtful, fun, phenomenal, positive, and life-changing is how students describe Christine's coaching. "Emotionally astute, gripping, stellar, inventive, and stalwart" is how critics describe Christine's directing. "Delicious and wonderful” is how critics describe her performances.
She is a member of the 2019-21 Stage Directors & Choreographers Society Foundation Observership Class, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab (NYC), Directors Lab West (LA), Directors Lab North (Toronto), and Cleveland Play House Directors Gym.
Christine was a co-founding, co-producing artistic director of the critically-acclaimed classical theatre company, Mamaí Theatre (2010-2017). In 2017, The Cleveland Critics' Circle honored Mamaí and her production of A DOLL’S HOUSE at Playhouse Square with two Superior Achievement Awards.
As an educator, Christine was named a U.S. Presidential Scholars Program’s Distinguished Teacher and a Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. She has received grants and fellowships to study Shakespeare in performance at The Globe Theatre in London, the National Endowment for the Humanities’ National Institute on Teaching Shakespeare, and The Juilliard School.
Currently she coaches online and is a faculty member at Cleveland State University's Film & Media Arts Department, Baldwin Wallace University’s Department of Theatre & Dance, and The Baldwin Wallace Community Arts School. For 16 years she taught theatre and film and served a stint as chair of Shaker Heights High School’s nationally-recognized and award-winning theatre arts department. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature and Writing from Columbia University and an MFA in Acting from Kent State University.
Christine continues her acting training with companies such as Shakespeare & Company, Bedlam, Red Bull, and The Houde School. She is represented by Docherty Talent and Heyman Talent. Member AEA-EMC and Stage Directors & Choreographers Society.
More about me at christinemcburney.com
