'Mid-Strut' rehearsals energize playwright Eric Burns
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Playwright and former Fox News Watch host Eric Burns. -
Robert Turano as Jack and Cary Anne Spear as Wendy in Playhouse REP's "Mid-Strut."
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Eric Burns would have you believe that he's not a social person, that collaboration is against his nature, and that a change has come over him in a few weeks of putting on a show in Pittsburgh.
The Ambridge native and graduate of Westminster College started his career at WQED, became a newsman for NBC and was host of "Fox News Watch," a roundtable for media critiques, while finding time to write eight books. Starting Thursday, The REP, the professional company of Point Park University, will debut "Mid-Strut," his first play to get a full-on regional production.
These days, Mr. Burns can be found at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in Oakland, spending long hours in the company of the cast, crew and director Rob Lindblom, and he finds himself being agreeable when an actor suggests a change in a line or even a switch of chunks of dialogue.
Where: Pittsburgh Playhouse's Studio Theatre, Oakland.
When: Friday through Feb. 19 (Thursday preview): 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri.; 2 and 8 p.m. Sat.; and 2 p.m. Sun. Post-show discussion Feb. 10.
Tickets: $24-$27, students $7-$8 (pay what you will Feb. 4 matinee, subject to availability). pittsburghplayhouse.com or 412-392-8000.
After saying he had difficulty putting the experience into words, Mr. Burns used his way with words to say, "I'm an errand boy, and a happy errand boy. The errand is, Can we make this scene a little tighter? Do we need this line? Do we need another line to make this clear? And I go run the errand."
Much to his surprise, he does it with a smile.
He said writing the play was the hardest thing he's ever done, and the most pleasurable, and the pleasure of the experience has spread to the process of prepping a production.
"I seriously have a certain amount of sociability each day that my body will permit me to exhibit," he says, sitting in the empty lounge area of the Playhouse, a TV blaring news but no remote control around to turn it off or turn down the volume. "And once I reach that limit, I have to go off by myself somewhere. Even when I did 'Fox News Watch,' that was only a half-hour show, [but] I had to be so up and attentive and try to make sure that the lefties and the righties got equal time -- someone at Fox tried to do that, by the way, and I was he -- I just for about an hour or two [afterward] didn't want to talk. ... The only thing I can do for a fairly long time that involves other people, apparently, is work on a play."
First Published February 1, 2012 12:00 am
