Pittsburg Native Eric Burns Returns To The REP 2/3-19

Pittsburgh-native Eric Burns is returning home to premiere his first play, Mid-Strut, with The REP, Point Park University's professional theatre company, at the Pittsburgh Playhouse Feb. 3 through Feb. 19, 2012. The novelist, television host, commentator, writer and producer got his start working at WQED.

About the play: "Mid-Strut tells the story of Jack Allison, a charming, eccentric, intelligent and witty man. And he has less than a year to live. Use your remaining time wisely, says his oncologist. He decides he can use it no more wisely than to have sex with a very special woman. Or at least to put in a request. His intended is named Wendy, and he has not seen her for more than three decades. When last he did see her, she was a majorette prancing around the football field at halftime of the games. It is not just lust that he feels for Wendy after all this time. It might not even be lust at all. "You see," he tells her when they finally meet, "I believe that a majorette stands for something." "A majorette stands for something?" Wendy replies. And Jack goes on to explain.

Wendy does not know what to do. She has been married for a long time and happily---or so she thought. But she just found out that her husband, also named Jack, has had an affair. She is distraught. Jack Allison appears in her life just as Jack McGruder has broken her heart.

The play goes on to raise questions and provide answers of a sort: Does Wendy have sex with Jack Allison? Does she forgive her husband and take him back? How is the relationship between Wendy's daughter and her boyfriend affected by all this?"

The cast includes Carry Anne Spear as Wendy McGruder, Robert Turano as Jack Allison, John Shepard as Jack McGruder, Maggie Carr as Sarah McGruder, Quinn Shannon as Adam Vitelli and Philip Winters as Paul Hodges. Ronald Allan-Lindblom directs. Scenic design is by Stephanie Mayer-Staley, costume design is by Cathleen Crocker-Perry, lighting design is by Lloyd Sobel, and sound design is by StEve Shapiro.

Burns started off at WQED on a nightly cultural affairs show, Life Style, filmed in Studio B right beside Mister Roger's Neighborhood. Burns became a lifelong friend of Rogers and considers him to be "the only mentor I ever had in TV."

Following his stint at WQED, Burns worked as a correspondent, substitute anchor and originator of the "Cross-Country" segment of The Today Show on NBC News. In 1983, Burns was the writer, producer and host for Old Habits on PBS and later an essayist for The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. Throughout the following years he worked with Entertainment Tonight as a commentator, PBS as the host for By the Year 2000, and the host of Word of Mouth with Eric Burns on E! Entertainment. In the early 1990s, Burns was the host and writer for Arts & Entertainment Revue for A&E. He was also a free-lance writer and media consultant for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and host of CNBC's Talk Live! From 1996 to 2005, Burns was the host of a weekly media review program that was one of the top-rated weekend shows on all-news cable, Fox News Watch.

Currently, Burns is working as an author with his first work of fiction, a murder mystery called The Strange Death of Daniel Selvey. He is also the writing tutor at Freudigman and Billings in Westport, Conn. Some of his most successful, well-known books are The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol and The Smoke of Gods: A Social History of Tobacco. Both books were given "the Best of the Best" awards from the American Library Association.

Mid-Strut is the winner of the Eudora Welty Emerging Playwrights' Award and premieres at the Pittsburgh Playhouse February 3-19, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $24 - $27. Student tickets are $7-8. Group and senior discounts are available. For more information visit www.pittsburghplayhouse.com. A preview performance is open to the public on Thursday, Feb. 2. The pay what you will performance will be held on Saturday, Feb. 4 at 2 p.m. and a post-show discussion, sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts, will be held on Friday, Feb. 10.