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Written by Forward Theater Company

Tributes to our friend and colleague, Colleen Burns

Posted 6-13-11

We are deeply saddened by the passing of one of Forward Theater Company’s founding members: Colleen Burns was a gifted actress, a wonderful musician, a generous collaborator, and a great friend. 

A professional actress for more than 30 years, she first graced Madison stages at the Rep in 1974. Over the decades she performed in many plays and musicals there, including Nunsense, Baby, Consumer Affairs (which she co-authored with longtime musical partner Jack Forbes Wilson), and the record breaking A...My Name is Alice.

Colleen not only helped create Forward Theater Company in 2009, she played the lead in our first production, the radio play All About Eve. In the following season, she directed and performed in another radio drama, The 39 Steps.

Colleen’s enormous talent, her professionalism, her laughter, and her dedication to her art will be the legacy that lives on in all our hearts.

Tributes 

My mother was diagnosed with a massive brain tumor in January of 2010.  So naturally, I constantly find myself reviewing those last months before she got sick, looking for happy memories.  None was happier than the night in November 2009 when Forward Theater opened All About Eve, -- not because Mom was proud of me (though I knew she was).  She was happy because for the post-show reception I had persuaded Colleen Burns to perform the "I Need Things" monologue from A ... My Name is Alice.  My mother loved theater in every form. She must have seen hundreds of shows. But I can say with absolute confidence that Colleen's performances in the Alice plays for Madison Rep were Mom's all-time favorites.  The "I Need Things" scene was the best of the best, as far as she was concerned.  And the glow on her face as she watched Colleen's reprise was priceless. 

I am grateful to Colleen for so many things: for being at the table when our original "gang of six" founded Forward Theater; for lending her voice, heart, and talent to so many of our endeavors; for being an advocate for excellence in everything we did.  (At that first meeting Colleen suggested that our mission statement should be, simply, "Good plays done well.")  But more than anything, I am grateful to Colleen for making my mother so happy.

Jennifer Uphoff Gray
Artistic Director
Forward Theater Company

Colleen was my friend for more than 30 years.  She was a force of nature, a terrific actress and a consummate professional.  I'll always remember doing The Importance of Being Earnest with Colleen and Steve Hemming.  She was an amazing Lady Bracknell -- imperious, sort of scary, and very, very funny. 

Last January, my wife Steph and I had Colleen, her husband Marty, and Sarah Day over for dinner.  It was an evening of laughter and remembering.  Listening to Colleen and Sarah talk about their theater experiences together is one pf the best memories I'll keep of Colleen.

As an actress, no one was better.  As a friend, she was caring, loyal, and always there if you needed her.  She will be so missed by everyone who loved her.

Jim Buske
Advisory Company Member
Forward Theater Company

I had met Colleen some time around the summer of 1987... I think... anyway, we finally had the opportunity to work together in the late summer of 1989 in a production of Baby at the Madison Rep.  Jack Forbes Wilson, another theater hero of mine, was part of the production as well.  I have to admit that I was eagerly awaiting the rehearsals and performances. I knew there was something very special about these two artists.

Colleen and I talked more and more as the first week was coming to a close, and we decided to go for a drink after our next rehearsal. We made our way to the Barber's Closet, which was located in the wonderful, and terribly missed, Hotel Washington.  The two of us had only one drink each, but we talked and laughed for five hours... it was one of those incredible moments in life... and we never stopped laughing and talking together. Colleen and Jack began their writing partnership that summer, and the three of us, along with our close friend Marie Barteau, were able to do several productions of Jack and Colleen's works. 

Now the laughter is supplanted by tears, but I know the sadness will not last.  Burns didn't spend all that time to leave me a jibbering heap.  The laughter is just around the corner, and a part of Colleen will live on in all of us.  

Michael Herold
Advisory Company Member
Forward Theater Company

I grew up in a small farming community in rural Wisconsin; a place with no stoplights, no fast food restaurants, and no movie theater. In many ways, the world I knew was very small.

But I had the good fortune to live only half an hour from Ft. Atkinson, home of The Fireside Dinner Theater. It was there that I saw my first professional theater production – Showboat – starring Colleen Burns as Captain Andy’s wife. I was twelve years old, in a blue polyester dress and ribbons in my waist-length hair. As the lights went down and the musicians started to play the overture, I knew I had discovered an incredible new world.

When I heard Colleen sing – that day, and in many subsequent performances – I was simply enchanted. As a nun in The Sound of Music, as Mrs. Shinn performing “One Grecian Urn” in The Music Man, and in so many other roles, I was awestruck. With perfect comic timing and a voice that could fill an amphitheater, she was always a delight to watch.

Almost 30 years later when I began working with Colleen as a fellow FTC advisory company member, I was still awestruck – this time by her conviction for the project, her insight on the plays we were reading, and her professionalism in every facet of her work.

I don’t know how many productions Colleen was in, or how many performances she gave over the course of her amazing career. I can only imagine that she introduced many, many other little girls in pigtails and pretty dresses to the magic of live theater, and inspired some of them to also pursue a career in the arts. That’s an incredible legacy for a truly incredible actress, singer, colleague, and friend.

Gwen Rice
Communications Director
Forward Theater Company

I admired Colleen’s work on the stage for so many years, and finally got to meet her when I joined the Forward Theater Company Board two years ago.

I was one of the hundreds of lucky ones who saw her show-stopping performance as “the Poetry Lady” in A…my name is Alice years ago. We laughed so hard because she was so good – perfect timing, the execution of a subtle shift or a broad gesture, a voice with incredible range, and a marvelous connection with the audience.  Remembering her today, my husband and I both cracked a smile and called out “HE did it! HE did it!”-- our tribute to her inimitable delivery of that line. After the poetry lady introduction, we sought out other plays where Colleen had a role.  Some of my favorite performances were her formidable Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, and Catherine Petkoff (Raina’s mother) in Arms and the Man. I was delighted to see her in the workshop production of Love is the Weirdest of All based on the songs of Peter and Lou Berryman. And, what a thrill it was when she stepped up to the microphone for the role of Margo Channing in All About Eve in 2009—a perfect choice to set the bar of quality for the inaugural  production of Madison’s new professional theater company.

I had the chance to get to know her just a bit when we worked on the Christmas fundraiser for FTC later that fall. When we were selecting pieces for the readings, she asked to read Gift of the Magi, and my memories of the piece were that it was just a little too contrived and sentimental, but I wanted her to pick something she liked so we went with it. Well, it was the loveliest, most authentic reading of that piece I’d ever heard, and she dashed my preconceptions and won me over with her warm, fresh, and compelling performance. She had that capacity – to pull you into her performance, to capture your attention, your imagination, and your heart, and to give life and dimension to a writer’s words—whether it was a short reading, or a full production.  All that, and she had pizzazz.

Others have written of her wit and humor, her commitment to her craft, and her other gifts, all of which will be so missed. I remember a short conversation after a performance with Jack at a reception where she sang, “Gonna Build a Mountain” as a ballad, and she mentioned how much she liked its simple hope and determination and the way it fit with our dreams of building Forward Theater.

I'm gonna build a daydream, from a little hope.
I'm gonna push the daydream, up that mountain slope.
I'm gonna build a daydream, woah, I'm gonna see it through,
Gonna build a mountain and a daydream,
Gonna make 'em both come true.

She helped make the dream of Forward Theater come true, and I suspect many other dreams for others in her too brief, but so very vibrant life.  I hope as we keep working on that dream, ignited in part by her spark, that we’ll do her proud.

Jane Elder
President, Board of Directors
Forward Theater Company