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FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1988
1
The Attic Theatre will be the scene of "Learn to Fall".
written several TV movies
that had been optioned. But
this is the first stage play I've
done. My orientation has
always been film.
"All along, though, Steve
has said, 'This can be a play.'
Periodically, he'd look at it
and say, 'It's looking more
and more like a play.' Then,
finally, he said, 'This is a
play!
Not long after, Burnstein
says, Rothman began urging
him to seek an initial home
for Learn to Fall at the Attic
Theatre in Detroit.
Burnstein followed that ad-
vice, the Attic was definitely
interested, and plans were
soon under way for Learn to
Fall to bow on a Detroit stage.
Since writing his first
teleplay, Be My Guest, short-
ly after graduation from U-M,
Burnstein has spent his time
writing other teleplays and
teaching Shakespeare to
students at Northwood In-
stitute's Selfridge AFB Ex-
tension Center. Recently, he's
completed a theatrical movie,
Renaissance Man, which has
been optioned by fellow
Detroiter, Kurt Luedtke, win-
ner of the Academy Award for
his screenplay for Out of
Africa.
Married and the father of
two children, Burnstein does
all of his writing from a
small, at-home office in
Plymouth, a fact, he says,
that often astonishes
Hollywood film writers.
"Why don't you live in Los
Angeles?' is always the first
question I'm asked when I go
out there to meetings;' he
says.
"But working here is real-
ly no problem at all. I just fly
out periodically to California
and go to my meetings. Then,
I fly back home.
"Anyway, the toughest part
about being a writer is get-
ting a good agent," he says.
"Once you've done that, you
can write on the moon. After
all, you- don't sell the stuff —
the agent does that, and my
agent is terrific.
"And, very honestly, it
would make me nervous to
live in a city where everybody
was writing — where the guy
who cleans your windshield
at the Shell station not only
might be, but probably has,
written something better
than you have. That would
scare the hell out of me. Here,
I just don't run into that."
Still, it's nice to have a few
other writers around, he
allows, adding that a trip to
close friend Luedtke's house
in Birmingham always serves
as inspiration, especially
when he comes face-to-face
with Luedtke's Oscar on the
mantle, and remembers that
Luedtke wrote most of the
screenplay for Out of Africa
from his desk in
Birmingham.
Burnstein's idea for writing
Learn to Fall came about
through his life-long friend-
ship with Buten, with whom
he grew up on Detroit's nor-
thwest side, and especially
through his up-close obser-
vance of Buten's life and
career during the early 1970's
in Detroit.
"Howie and I went to
elementary school and to U-
M together, and he starred in
the first television play I
wrote. I was freelancing for
the Free Press in those days,
and Evelyn Orbach — who's
playing Howie's mother in
Learn to Fall — got hold of me
and said, 'I see you've written
some things. Can you write a
play over a weekend?' I told
her I'd give it a shot, sat
down, and knocked it out that
weekend. It was a 30-minute
play, syndicated across the
country for the Institute for
Jewish Life.
"With Learn to Fall, I lived
through the intense days in
which the play is actually set
— when Howie was a struggl-
ing performer and writer. All
these things he's tremendous-
ly successful at today, he was
not successful at then, and
was getting a lot of rejection.
So, to get away from himself
and the rejection, he decided
to volunteer his time at a
school where they worked
with autistic children,
although he didn't know what
an autistic child was. He
didn't go in trying to cure
anybody or to teach anybody
anything. This remarkable
exchange that's seen in the
play and that led to a
breakthrough was just pure-
ly from the heart."
Now 37, and living in Paris,
Buten — who'll play himself
in Learn to Fall — holds a.doc-
torate in clinical psychology
today, and works professional-
ly with the autistic. He still
performs occasionally as Buf-
fo, and has also enjoyed
distinctive success as a writer
in recent years. His first
novel, When I Was Five, I Kill-
ed Myself, a story of a child
confined to a mental institu-
tion, was published in France
and became a runaway best-
seller in 1981. Since then,
Buten has written three other
successful novels, published
in Europe.
Learn to Fall will mark his
first time out as a performer
in a stage play.
He'll be onstage almost
throughout the play, and four
extended episodes, remindful
of the gruelling fight scenes
between an adult and a child
in The Miracle Worker, have
proven to be more than a lit-