PO Box 6952 | Providence, RI 02940

Phone: (774) 488-6363 | Email: tikijay@gmail.com

Jason "Jay" Burns has spent more than thirty years chasing the particular kind of magic that can only happen, however briefly, in a theatre. It’s the kind of magic that flickers in the dark just before a curtain rises, the breathless moment he still lives for.

He didn’t begin with grand ambitions of becoming a multi-hyphenate theatre artist. He began simply as a young actor stepping onto the stage at Trinity Repertory Company, making his professional debut in A Christmas Carol. From there, he followed the work wherever it led: comedy, drama, Shakespeare, contemporary plays, film sets, black box theatres, community stages, and the occasional haunted house. He’s played rabbis, eccentrics, Shakespearean characters, neurotic New Yorkers — “all manner of wonderfully complicated human beings,” as his résumé puts it, and he’s made each one feel like someone you might meet on the street, or wish you could.

Acting opened the door, but directing opened the room. Jay discovered he was drawn to the alchemy of rehearsal — that strange, exhilarating process of taking words from a page, putting them into the hands of artists, and discovering what the story wants to become. Over the years, he’s shaped productions ranging from Animal Farm to Twelfth Night, from the farce of Lend Me a Tenor to the witchy charm of Bell, Book and Candle. In 2026, tepping into the dual role of Henry/Arnold in Talk Radio with the same curiosity that’s carried him through his entire career.

His work isn’t confined to the stage. Jay is a featured writer and performer for the YouTube series Q Up the Movie, where his love of storytelling meets his love of film. He’s also adapted classics for the stage, including Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and Gogol’s The Government Inspector, reshaping familiar tales with a craftsman’s touch and a performer’s instinct for rhythm.

Film and television have called to him too; from playing a “Paranormal Sound Guy” in Ghost Brothers: The Conjuring House to stepping into the sheriff’s boots in The Mailbox Fairy. He’s been a churchgoer, a lawman, a sound tech, and a dozen other characters who flicker across the screen but leave their mark.

Awards have followed, as they tend to do when someone keeps showing up with heart and craft: a Rhode Island International Film Festival honor, a Best Supporting Actor nomination, years spent emceeing the RI 48 Hour Film Festival. But accolades have never been the point.

What keeps Jay coming back is simple: “the laugh that catches an audience off guard, the silence that suddenly means something, and that breath just before the curtain rises.” That’s the magic he’s been chasing for three decades — not applause, not prestige, but the shared spark between artist and audience. The moment when a story becomes real.

Jay Burns is a man who has built a life out of those moments. And he’s still chasing them — one rehearsal room, one character, one rising curtain at a time.

SELECT ACTING

Henry/Arnold Talk Radio 2026

The Players at Barker Playhouse. Directed by Terry Shea

“Victor Prynne”                                    Private Lives                                                           2026

The Arctic Playhouse. Directed by Richard Marr-Griffin

“Sister Mary”                                        Sister Mary Ignatious Explains It All for You    2025

Rhode Island Shakespeare. Directed by JC. Wallace

“Ira Stone”                                           Laughter on the 23rd Floor                                   2025

The Arctic Playhouse. Directed by Ida Zecco

“Ira Drew”                                            It’s Only a Play                                                       2024

Rhode Island Stage Ensemble. Directed by Rich and Steven Ferron

“Sagot”                                               Picasso at the Lapine Agile                                 2022

Attleboro Community Theater. Directed by James Sulanowski

Trinity Repertory Company. Directed by Kent Gash

SELECT FILM/TV

“Paranormal Sound Guy”                 Ghost Brothers: The Conjuring House     2023

Painless Productions / Travel Channel

“Sheriff Gary” (featured)                  The Mailbox Fairy                                    2008

A Panos Trikoulis Production. Directed by Peter Trikoulis

“Church Goer”                              Jesus, Mary, and Joey                             2002

Produced by Federal Hill Pictures. Directed by James Quattrochi

AWARDS & ACCOLADES

2009 Rhode Island International Film Festival Short Subject

2015-2019 RI 48 Hour Film Festival Emcee

2018 Best Supporting Actor Nominee BWW