From BASH to Edinburgh: “Steve Burns Alive” Earns Standing Ovations at Fringe

by Lesley Misko

Two former Boyertown Area Senior High (BASH) theatre students are taking their long-running creative partnership across the Atlantic.

Steve Burns Alive, the stage production created by BASH alumni Steve Burns ’92 and Matt Freeman ’94, is making its debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland this month — and the show is already earning standing ovations.

In a recent social media post, Freeman reported that the production received “two standing ovations in as many performances” during its opening previews. The show has one additional preview before officially opening for press and it will continue its Edinburgh run through Aug. 30.

For Freeman, the international debut is another milestone in a friendship and creative partnership that began when the two were teenagers in Boyertown.

As the Boyertown Area Expression reported just over a year ago, Burns and Freeman first became friends in eighth grade and worked together on BASH theatre productions, including the school’s first Arts Expo. Both went on to careers in theatre, with Burns eventually becoming nationally known as the original host of Nickelodeon’s TV show Blue’s Clues.

Steve Burns Alive explores Burns’ unusual experience with fame, the internet and the audience’s relationship with a performer they may feel they know despite never having met him. The production examines the persistent online rumors surrounding Burns’ supposed death and the broader phenomenon of parasocial relationships — the connections audiences form with public figures through screens.

The show’s Edinburgh listing describes it as an exploration of what happens when “millions of strangers grieve a version of you that never existed.”

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is an especially fitting destination for the production. Founded in 1947 after eight theatre companies performed outside the official Edinburgh International Festival, the Fringe has grown into the world’s largest arts festival. Each August, thousands of performers present theatre, comedy, music, dance and other forms of live performance at venues throughout the city. The festival is described by the Fringe Society as the world’s largest arts marketplace, with roughly 3,500 shows registered each year across about 300 venues.

The show is being presented at Underbelly Cowgate, one of the Fringe’s major performance venues, with performances scheduled daily at 5:20 p.m.

Freeman encourages theatre fans visiting the Fringe to see the show and requests that friends recommend it to anyone they know attending the festival.

He also reflects on the significance of continuing to create with Burns after more than three decades.

“If you’re just someone who has witnessed the many stages of a friendship that started over 30 years ago,” Freeman writes, “I hope you’re proud to see me and Steve Burns still at it, making cool stuff, all these years later.”

Freeman credits the production’s Tony Award-winning producer, director, technical team, and stage management staff with helping the show “grow and evolve.”

For Boyertown, the Edinburgh debut offers a reminder that the creative partnerships formed on local stages can have a surprisingly long reach.

More than 30 years after Burns and Freeman first met at BASH, their latest collaboration is playing to audiences halfway around the world — and receiving standing ovations along the way.

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