Interview with Steve Burns

Steve Burns

Steve Burns: Alive is an intimate, unflinchingly honest solo show from the original host of Blue’s Clues. Blending memoir, grief, surreal humor, and unexpected catharsis, the piece traces Steve Burns’ journey from beloved children’s TV figure to someone reckoning with rumors of disappearances and death to the personal transformations that followed. I had the opportunity to ask Steve a few questions about the show’s inspiration, confronting ghosts of the past, and what it meant to finally share his story so openly with the audience who grew up with him.

What inspired you to create Steve Burns Alive?

Honestly? Matthew Freeman did.

Matt is my oldest friend. I dated his sister in Jr. High School. He’s also a brilliant playwright and director who had this uncanny ability to look at the tangled pile of stories I was carrying around and say, “Yeah, that’s a play. Just write it all down and I’ll fix it.” Which, to be fair, is pretty much what happened.

I had fragments. Memories from Blue’s Clues, grief I never quite metabolized, surreal moments from life after public life. Matt gently insisted that it was time to tell them. So yeah. This whole thing exists because my oldest friend looked at the mess of me and said, “There’s a story here. Let’s tell it together.”

So Steve Burns: Alive grew out of that collaboration.

I’ve been haunted for a long time by the idea that I became a kind of ghost in a cultural sense, and in some ways personally. I mean, there were rumors that I had died. And there were days it felt true. I wanted to make something that didn’t try to correct the record so much as walk right through it. Something that asks, “What happens after you disappear? And what happens if you come back?”

Also, to be honest: part of me just wanted to sit in the big weird chair again and talk directly to the audience like we used to do. Only this time, I wanted it to be real. And maybe a little unhinged.

Was the process of writing and performing Steve Burns Alive healing in any way? What did you personally take away from creating this show?

I got a little less haunted? Maybe?

This show forced me to stand next to the more complicated versions of myself. The guy who wore the green striped shirt, and the guy who quietly unraveled after taking it off. For a long time, I didn’t think those two people could exist in the same room without a fistfight or an emotional breakdown. Turns out, they can share a stage. Who knew?

Doing the show allowed me to integrate a lot of that fractured stuff. The grief, the confusion, the absurdity of being fame-ish for something so unexpected... and then vanishing from it. And maybe the biggest thing I learned is somehow that I’m still here. I’m still curious. And it’s okay to be seen. Does that make any sense?

You’ve stated that you “disappeared from the public eye on purpose” after Blue’s Clues. Yet this show is deeply vulnerable and revealing. What was it like for you to step back into the spotlight in this way and on your own terms?

I wasn’t planning a dramatic exit. I was just 29 and overwhelmed and, frankly, getting weird in ways that weren’t sustainable.

Coming back in this way, through theater and storytelling, feels less like stepping back into the spotlight and more like saying "So yeah. I’m alive. If you wanna come by, I’m here. I have chips and some seltzer.”

It’s different because it’s not about performing a role. It’s about being honest. Uncomfortably honest, sometimes. This is me showing up on my own terms. Probably for the first time.

What do you hope audiences take away from the show?

I hope they feel a little less alone. Especially if they’ve ever felt like they disappeared, too.

I hope they laugh at the ridiculousness of how we try to hold it all together and feel some kind of recognition in the places where it falls apart.

I hope they remember there's a person with a human soul on the other side of the screen, even when the screen is your phone, and we bear a certain responsibility for each other's well-being.

And I hope it gives people permission to be curious about their own stories. Even the hard parts. Especially the hard parts. Because there’s often something strangely beautiful waiting there. A clue, if you will. Did I really just say that?

What’s next for you creatively? Do you see this piece evolving or are there new projects on the horizon?

Matt and I both feel like Steve Burns Alive is still in motion. It’s a living piece, which means we want to keep performing it, revising it, letting it grow. Some nights it feels like a séance, and others like stand-up therapy. We'd like to tour it, maybe? Take it into different rooms, see what it unlocks for different audiences.

That said, I also have this deep itch to keep playing with the space between childhood and adulthood, wonder and grief, magic and reality. Whether that means writing more, performing more, maybe even making something with music again...I’m not totally sure yet. There's a forthcoming podcast. That will be cool. But I know I want to stay curious. That’s the compass now. Not success. Not relevance. Just curiosity.

Thank you, Steve, for taking the time to answer a few questions and for bringing such heart and honesty to the stage.

Steve Burns ALIVE

Performed by Steve Burns

Written by Steve Burns & Matthew Freeman

Directed by Matthew Freeman

July 23rd - July 25th, 2025

The Club at La MaMa (74A East 4th Street, NYC)

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Yani Perez, M.F.A., is a poet, playwright, translator, and educator. Her plays have been presented in various theaters in the United States, such as La Mama and Yale University, as well as internationally in Bogotá, Colombia. She works at IATI Theater, one of the oldest Latinx theaters in NYC. She is currently working on translations of Latinx artists in hopes of introducing them to English-speaking audiences.