Liam Burke
Liam Burke was born and bred in Brisbane and made his professional debut with Queensland Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Gypsy. His performing career took him to London’s West End and Broadway where he was Creative Assistant to Susan Stroman. He went on to study Creative Writing at the State University of New York (Porter Leach Fellowship) and screenwriting at UCLA. He was Producer’s Assistant at Timeline Films (Los Angeles) and worked for The Mary Pickford Institute teaching film education to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Here he worked on documentaries about silent film stars and was assistant editor on The Woman with the Hungry Eyes (The Theda Bara story). As a journalist Liam has written for The Santa Barbara News Press, Standard-Examiner and Noozhawk to name a few. He has had poetry and short stories published in The James White Review and won first prize for his Spoken Word at the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe, NYC.
Liam’s stage play Goodbye Norma Jeane about the Hollywood dance maker Jack Cole received a Matilda Award nomination in 2014. His first play The Tall Poppies about Sir Robert Helpmann received at a reading at the Old Vic in London in 2010 and his television series Helpmann is based on this play. He also wrote Neptune’s which had success in short play festivals in Los Angeles, Melbourne and London and which was subsequently made into a short film (Official Selection Montreal Independent Film Festival and Best Shorts USA). Liam recently adapted and directed the Spanish romantic comedy Smiley for Brisbane Pride, written by playwright Guillem Clua, it is now a Netflix series.
Liam is a proud member and Queensland committee member of the Australian Writer’s Guild and a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild/AFTRA.