grew up in East Harlem NYC and graduated from Radcliffe College, Harvard University. She received her Master’s in Education with a specialization in Politics, Drama and Civic Engagement from Goddard College. She is a member of the facilitation collective, Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB). She has studied as a Joker of Theater of the Oppressed under the guidance of Marie-Claire Picher and Augusto Boal. Additionally, she has trained Jokers of Theater of the Oppressed nationally through the TOPLAB facilitation training program, and internationally for the Federation of Senegalese Theater of the Oppressed groups. She has facilitated workshops for hundreds of participants since beginning her training in 2006. Burton is on the faculty in the Masters of Theater Education program at Emerson College, Boston; and formerly on the Art and Humanities faculty at Roxbury Community College, Boston. She has been a member of the Medea Project Theater for Incarcerated Women in San Francisco and founder of the New Freedwoman Project in Massachusetts. She is a recipient of the Black Butterfly Leadership Award in the category of WARRIOR; as well as the Cambridge Peace Award in honor of Muses, her first play, which created positive visibility for LGBTQA communities of African descent in Massachusetts. Her work has been written about in such publications as the African American Review, ArtsMedia magazine, Proscenium magazine, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix, Bay Windows, and Bay State Banner and has been interviewed for the Commonwealth Journal on WMBR. Currently, Burton served on the steering committee of the Boston Busing Desegregation Project, which engages community educators from the metro-Boston area in using storytelling, narrative and applied theater methodologies to re-vision quality education for all.
