Phillip Gregory Burke is a Black American of Haitian, Creole and Gullah-Geechee descent, New York City artivist, actor and playwright. Born in Syracuse, NY, he was raised in Auburn, NY, where his family has lived since December 24, 1858. The Auburn Education Foundation, inducted him into the Auburn Alumni Hall of Distinction in May 2023, for his “life’s work as an accomplished actor and playwright.”

He attended Syracuse University, receiving a BFA in Drama from The College of Visual and Performing Arts, Department of Drama & BS in Sociology from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Community Service: Civic Engagement for rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Post undergrad, he worked at Binghamton University’s Upward Bound Program before moving overseas to The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where he attended The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, receiving his MA in Classical and Contemporary Text: Acting. He holds the distinction of being the first Black person awarded this degree. He also trained at Shakespeare’s Globe Education and The Alexander Gibson School of Opera.

Select theaters he worked at as an actor: Arches Theater Company, On the Verge Festival, Shakespeare in the City (Scottish Highlands Tour), The Tron, London Hampstead Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Fest, Carolinian Shakespeare, The Fire This Time Festival, 48 Hours in Harlem, National Black Theatre, The Drama League, Passage Theatre Company. He earned his Equity card by acting in the hip-hop musical, in King Kong (Summer Stages), where he sang opera, his AFTRA card by appearing in multiple episodes of “One Life to Live” and his SAG card in the Coen Brother’s Inside Llewyn Davis, starring Oscar Isaac.

He has acted in commercials with NFL/CBS Sports’ Thursday Night Football’s “A Girl Named Raven,” directed by 36-time Emmy winner Pete Radovich. Crest & Oral B Pro (also print ads), Citi Bike, Tyson Foods, Nike/Air Jordan, multiple commercial and voiceover work with Now This/Visible. His print ad with Veteran’s Home Commitment Campaign & Walmart, has been displayed in Walmarts across America, for the past 5 years.

As a playwright, his writing chronicles the sociology of the African Diaspora and illuminates the intricate intersections of Blackness and queerness. From antiquity to the present, from his standalone plays to his cycles of plays, everything he writes is connected to a singular universe, centering their enriching narratives.

Burke is in the process of writing a three-play cycle called The First Testaments. The first play, He’s The First, is the inaugural winner of the Improbable Fiction New Works Series Award at Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival, is a top 13 finalist out of 850 submissions for The 48th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival in August 2023, a 2023 Semi-finalist for The Obsidian Theater Festival and the ten-minute version was filmed for All Arts & PBS. Further development of the play was supported via The National Black Theatre. He produced a developmental reading of I’m The First, the second Testament play with music, in June 2023 and an excerpt was presented at SolFest: A Latiné Theatre Festival, in August 2023.

The saga, The Suncatchers of Sahel: An Ancestral Tale Told to Today’s Griot, Part I: The Crumble Under the Crescent, a 2022 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow Finalist & 2022 Princess Grace Award in Playwriting Fellowship Semi-finalist, is the genesis of an intimate spectacle trilogy and spin-off set in medieval West Africa and Indigenous America. The second play, The Suncatchers of Sahel: An Ancestral Tale Told To Today’s Griot, Part II: The Three Twilights, was initially developed during his residency with The Civilians R&D Group and is a 2023 Semi-finalist for both The Princess Grace Award in Playwriting Fellowship & The Bay Area Playwrights Festival. The third play is currently in development. Its spin-off, The Simaraboo Two, had a Fresh Draft Series Reading with The Latinx Playwrights Circle.

Spanning 5 centuries, he is composing an epic ten play cycle chronicling military, spiritual and sociological warfare. A Holy Her, the first play, was recorded with The Parsnip Ship and was a Semi-finalist for the Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship Award. Developmental proposals of the 2nd play, Paradise Estate, was a 2022 Finalist for The Fire This Time New Works Lab Cycle 5. The 7th play, In the Name of the Mother, was an Art House INKubator Playwrights Program 2023-2024 Finalist. His standalone short play, Takamba, is a 2023 semi-finalist for The Playground Experiment’s Faces of America Monologue Festival.

Memberships: The Dramatists Guild, Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, The New York SAG-AFTRA Film Society and The Latinx Playwrights Circle. Residencies:National Black Theatre Keep SOUL Alive Reading Series 2023 Mico-Development Playwright, Latinx Playwrights Circle Playwrights’ Fellowship Inaugural Fellow, Brother To Brother Writer's Workshop, Exquisite Corpse Company’s Writer’s Lab, RESPITE: Generative Creative Writing Workshop with NY Writer’s Coalition & Pen +Brush, The Civilians R&D Group, No Gate Theatre Lab, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Playwrights Realm Script Share.

As an educator, he has taught developmental English both at Kingsborough and Hostos Community Colleges. He is a visiting artist at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and a freelance writer. Every local, city, state and federal election, he works in preserving election integrity as a poll worker, specializing in assisting elderly and disabled voters in Black and brown communities.

His entire body of work and life is dedicated to the memory of the legendary Grand Dame Sally Ann Jones, a brilliant orator from Georgia, who made his entire existence possible.

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