COSTA MESA, CA—It's really easy to be jealous of a guy like David Burnham. Besides being blessed with the killer good looks of a dashing matinee idol, the talented Broadway star has one of the most powerful, enviable male voices in musical theater. And to top it off, he is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people you'll ever meet.
Currently starring in South Coast Repertory's West Coast production of Adam Gwon's musical ORDINARY DAYS (ending January 24), Burnham is now back in his home state after spending some time playing Fiyero in the Broadway company of Wicked (he also originated the role in the early pre-Broadway workshops). Besides getting it on with the Green Girl, he was best known for starring in the Broadway and National Tour companies of The Light in the Piazza, which, as Italian hottie Fabrizio, garnered the actor both the Helen Hayes Award and the Back Stage West Garland Award for Best Actor in 2007.
The former farm boy—who will later get his big break replacing Donny Osmond in the national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat—recently sat down with BroadwayWorld correspondent Michael Lawrence Quintos to talk about his humble beginnings, his admiration for John Raitt, being a Broadway performer, and living his dream job.
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BWW: Hey, David! I just saw your awesome performance in ORDINARY DAYS at South Coast Rep!
DB: Woo-hoo! Oh, cool! I'm having a great time doing it and the audiences seem to be really responding to it... So what more can you ask for, right?
Right! Now, how did you get involved with this production?
Well, my agent sent me out for the audition and I hadn't heard anything about it before then. So, I went to the audition... and got cast! I happened to be in New York so I got to see [a production of] it while I was there.
Tell me a little bit about your character, Jason. What's he about? What's his deal?
[Laughs] Yeah! What's Jason's deal? Jason's a cool guy! I think Jason is just ruled by love. His trajectory in every song that he has and everything he does in the play really revolves around his love for Claire [played by Nancy Anderson]. The reason he's even staying in New York City is because of this girl. Everything he does is based around her. He's just so hopelessly in love and trying to make it work and deal with the city with Claire. So, you know, he's kind of a little bit more simple than some of the other characters, in that he doesn't really have a lot of baggage or layers underneath him. He's just a simple country boy who came from—or at least in our backstory—Michigan or somewhere like that, to intern as an architect in New York. He really hates this city...he actually really wants to go back home, but he fell for this girl. I think that's how he's surviving living in this city: it's because she makes it at all possible and makes it palatable for him.
What, as an actor, did you bring to this particular role?
Well, I think each actor... well, you got to bring yourself to it. Jason's not too far off from David Burnham, actually, in that I was raised on a farm. I mean, I've lived in New York City, but I'm a country boy at heart, I think. I've definitely been in love in New York City, and know that when you're in New York City and you're in love, it's a lot easier than when you're in New York City and you're by yourself. You know, it can be a strange place. It's one of the most populated cities in the world yet, at the same time, it can be the most lonely place in the world.
Now this musical is pretty much all the way sung-through. What kind of mindset do you need to take on with this kind of musical versus a traditional book musical (where you pause for dialogue)?
Well, our director Ethan McSweeny is a really brilliant guy. He comes from the world of plays, and so he approached this piece like it was a play. Basically, before we learned any of the music, we sat around a table and just read the lyrics as if they were monologues in a play. We took a day just approaching it that way, and getting to know the words and learning about each character's backstory and why we were saying those words. And then we learned the music. I thought that was really smart of Ethan because it comes from a much deeper place.
I assume, then, that a show like this is a lot harder to learn and prepare for, right?
This was one of the hardest shows I've ever had to do... that I had to learn because it's sophisticated music, and it's not easy to learn in that the music doesn't repeat choruses. Each song tells a story. The memorization of it...well, you just have to memorize it like it's a monologue because it's not easy music... it's not easy words... You really have to immerse yourself in it. So for the past three weeks, every day when I'm not rehearsing, I was listening to the score to just try and learn it. So I had to listen to it over and over and over again. But time has gone by so fast! Two more weeks and we're done with the show. I'm so happy I got to be a part of it because it's really been fun to do.
Well, before returning to the West Coast, you spent some time playing Fiyero in Wicked on Broadway. Can you talk a little bit about that experience?
Well, that was an amazing experience! I actually created the role of Fiyero in all of the original workshops, but then I didn't get to do it in New York until five years later which is kind of interesting [Laughs]. I went and did other things like The Light in the Piazza. So after creating the role but not getting to do it in New York, I was really happy when they invited me to come and do it. So it was like I was able to complete the circle! It was so much fun and I just love that show! And, I mean, the audiences are just so amazing for that show. All the fans are just so supportive. It was a thrill to be a part of that cast.
Since you're pretty familiar with the origins of Wicked from doing the workshops, and then you played the same role in the production that exists today, you can definitely speak very knowledgeably about both incarnations. Were the changes pretty drastic?
Oh, yeah. It's very interesting because the very first time we did Wicked, we just finished the first act...the first act ran over three hours! Now, you can imagine there was a lot of music that was cut, but a lot of music was added later, too. But whole characters and whole scenes were cut.
