Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1475547
TEAM PLAYER: Burrows (front row, in baseball cap) with the cast of "Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's 'The Facts of Life' and 'Diff'rent Strokes.'" had to remind her, 'Bebe, you have to dance badly. Lilith has to dance awkwardly.'") He describes the pleasure of presenting a new actor to the public, such as Woody Harrelson: "When you cast somebody new and unknown, it's like peeling layers of an onion. If you're successful with one layer, you go to the next one." We learn that Burrows — who offers equally detailed, lively accounts of other shows, including "Frasier" and "Friends" —cherishes the "live" aspect of sitcoms recorded in front of studio audiences. "I film theater," he writes. "A lot of directors do two or three passes for coverage. I prefer to keep it going, again like a Broadway show." The position of the cameras on a sitcom is akin to being in the second row of a theater, he writes. Burrows's approach to editing is an outgrowth of this mindset. When editors stop by to watch the shooting of an episode with an audience, he writes, they can take note of "everything from the audience response to the glint in an actor's eye, and that will guide them in terms of what and where to cut." The reaction of the studio audience, he writes, should inform how the show will be cut. Burrows errs only in his extensive quo- tations of dialogue from episodes of various shows to illustrate certain points; while devotees of those shows will remember these exchanges, for less obsessed readers, the dialogue falls a bit flat on the page. Oth- erwise, though, Burrows proves himself to be an engaging, natural storyteller. He often compares directing sitcoms to directing plays, but what comes across most clearly in this immensely charming book is his delight in "play" in the word's other sense: For Bur- rows at age 81, collaborating with actors, managing sets, and making audiences laugh still remains a form of playing — at a very high level indeed. "Directed by James Burrows" By James Burrows, with Eddy Friedfeld 352 pages, Ballantine Books $28.99, 2022 P H O T O : B A L L A N T I N E B O O K S Audience reaction informs how a sitcom is cut. 51 S U M M E R Q 3 I S S U E B O O K R E V I E W