ATX TV Festival Honors Iconic Sitcom Director James Burrows

Austin, Texas (June 5, 2023) — Prolific Emmy winner James Burrows was honored Saturday at the ATX TV Festival, held every June in downtown Austin. Inside the packed ballroom of the Driskill Hotel, festival goers were treated to a highlight reel of Burrows’ career directing television sitcoms, from “Taxi” and “Cheers” to “Friends” and “Mike & Molly.”

Burrows was in town to receive the Achievement in Television eXcellence Award, presented by festival co-founders Emily Gipson and Caitlin McFarland.

“I don’t know that there’s anyone else that’s directed over a thousand hours of television,” Gipson said. “This man has created so many moments that have brought pure joy and laughter into our lives and friends into our homes…and there’s really no one else whose career even compares.”

The award is bestowed annually by the festival, now in its 12th season. A “Cheers” reunion was held Friday night at Austin City Limits.

“We don’t get to congregate very often,” Burrows said of cast members Ted Danson, John Ratzenberger and George Wendt along with co-creators Glen and Les Charles. “It was great to see them, to be with them.”

The fest pays homage to the medium and its historic role in shaping our culture. Arguably no leader has played a greater creative role in the evolution of the sitcom than Burrows, who lovingly referred to the medium as “filmed theater.”

“Everything that I do has to do with staging a play, and then the last two days I bring in cameras to cover the play," he said. "So it’s all about pleasing the audience. You gotta make them laugh.”

Interviewed by Jim Halterman of TV Insider, Burrows reflected on growing up watching his father Abe Burrows write and direct Broadway plays: “He always treated everybody with kindness.”

He was led to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" after getting to know the title star while working on Broadway.

“I worked as hard as I could, and as I was walking to the stage to shoot the show, Mary Tyler Moore was coming the other way and she said to me, ‘We feel our investment in you has worked out.’ So right then and there I knew that I could work at the company,” he said. “I got some ‘Newharts’ after that…I got ‘Rhodas.’ I was now able to direct in what was, at that point, a world class television workshop.”

His directing style and love for performers were central topics of conversation Saturday. “I like to be close to the actors…I’m there to protect them, that’s my job. I don’t care about the shots.” Several of those actors went on to direct themselves, including Jaston Bateman and David Schwimmer. (“Tommy Kail watched me…he directed ‘Hamilton,’ so I should take a little bit of credit.”)

His deep well of funny, loving stories about his sitcom work are detailed in his book “Directed by James Burrows,” out June 13 in paperback. But his quick wit and emphasis on running a kind set were on full display at the hour-long panel, answering audience questions about working with the “interplanetary cast” of “Taxi” and reviving “Will & Grace.” He also offered advice to aspiring performers: “When you aspire to do something, when that door opens to you, make sure you’re ready to do it.”

He recently directed “Live Before a Studio Audience” for ABC, an experience he said “scared the pants off me…I would do a half-hour show in a week. On this I was doing an hour show in a night.”

Burrows also reunites with Kelsey Grammer on the upcoming revival of “Frasier,” streaming later this year on Paramount+. “He was a buffoon on ‘Cheers’ and he became a straight man on ‘Frasier,’ so you know his extraordinary ability to make pompous funny, and not hate him.”

“We’re introducing a new cast. His son is in Boston, so he goes back, and the series is gonna be about meeting his son…who has taken on the attributes of Martin Crane, Frasier’s dad. The kid’s a blue collar kid.”

He said directing keeps him young at the age of 82, but the quality of scripts prevents him from working as much as he wants to.

“The thrill I got from doing the two ‘Frasier’ shows made me want it even more. It’s just that there’s nothing out there…I really wish somebody would write a great sitcom script again. It’s a dying form. I don’t know what’s going on.”

As a viewer, he enjoys single-camera comedies like “Ted Lasso,” helmed by Wendt's nephew Jason Sudeikis. "George said he was around the ‘Cheers’ stage when he was nine years old,” Burrows told the ATX TV crowd. He also watches “The Great” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

“The concept is not that important to me...What’s important to me is the execution of the concept," Burrows said. "It starts with the words on the page."