Kathryn Burnett

Kathryn is an award-winning screenwriter and playwright who has worked in the arts for over 25 years and has significant credits for both stage and screen. Her television writing credits including 'Under The Vines', 'My Life is Murder', 'Fresh Eggs' and 'The Tender Trap' for which she won Best Drama Script at the 2021 NZ TV Awards with co-writer Riwia Brown. 
 
She is the playwright behind the one-woman comedy Nicola Cheeseman is Back which was shortlisted for the NZ Adam Play Award in 2023 and enjoyed a premiere season at the Herald Theatre (Plumb Theatre) in June 2024. 
 
In 2022/23 she enjoyed a sell-out premiere season of 5-hander comedy The Campervan and critically acclaimed season of Mike & Virginia both produced by Tapole Productions at the Pumphouse Theatre.  
 
Mike & Virginia (produced by Burnett) was co-written with Nick Ward in 2011, as part of the International Comedy Festival and it was subsequently produced in Wellington at Circa Theatre (2013). Mike & Virginia won SWANZ Best Play in 2012. 
 
Her play Bowled Over was produced in 2013 by the Auckland Theatre Company, as part of the Auckland Arts Festival. In 2016 Burnett took her turn in the spotlight, as one of nine women telling stories from their own life, for comedy show Dialogue: Mum's the Word. In 2017 her play The Campervan was shortlisted for the Adams NZ Play Award.
 
Last year she wrote “The Productive Writer Guidebook,” was published in the horror anthology Remains to Be Told:Dark Tales of Aotearoa (Clandestine Press).
 
When she isn't writing, Kathryn works as a writing coach, script consultant and workshop facilitator.