Patrick Burns’ one-man-musical, From Foster Care to Fabulous was first presented by the Ahimsa Collective in Los Angeles in 2010. It has since received a workshop production at the UC Irvine Festival of New Musicals and was awarded a grant by the Puffin Foundation which funded a benefit performance for the Los Angeles-based foster care organization Fostering Imagination in March 2011. Mr. Burns has performed the show in Alaska as a fundraiser for Bay Area organization Beyond Emancipation and in 2015 in San Diego as a fundraiser for the organization Just In Time for Foster Youth.
From Foster Care to Fabulous had its New York debut at the Bleecker Street Theatre as part of the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity in 2013 where it was nominated for Best Solo Production and Best Solo Performance. Proceeds for this production benefited the Children’s Aid Society. The show received the Planet Activist award for going above and beyond the call of duty while working with a charitable institution and raising awareness for a cause.
Patrick has developed From Foster Care to Fabulous for the lecture stage exploring the healing benefits of art and music and their effects on those processing past trauma. This lecture was presented at the Naomi Chernoff Conference at Syracuse University in 2017 and will be presented at Cornell University in the Spring of 2018.
From Foster Care to Fabulous continues to astound audiences regionally, playing the Red House Arts Center in Syracuse, NY, the New Helvetia theatre in Sacramento, CA and most recently as part of the 20th Annual New York International Fringe Festival. In 2014, the East Bay Children’s Law Offices presented Patrick with a special philanthropy and talent award for his national foster care advocacy work.
Burns wrote the score to the musical Madwomen, which was featured as part of the UC Irvine Festival of New Musicals in 2012. The show is being further developed with UC Irvine and New Musicals Incorporated.
Patrick has written songs and composed incidental music for productions of The Penguin Tango, Medea, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play at the Red House Arts Center where he was in residence for three seasons.
Patrick is the musical supervisor for the Los Angeles-based company, The Album Project and has provided musical arrangements for several of their productions.
In 2017, Patrick was awarded the Lincoln City Fellowship by the Speranza Foundation to support the development of his new musical, Life Sentence, which explores the effects of the Prison Industrial Complex on American families.
Patrick has been a featured contributor to the entertainment section of The Atlantic’s website.
