Ask Me Anything: Kevin Burke

The Hoosier native performed the one-man Broadway hit Defending the Caveman for 10 years in Las Vegas and on national tours. This month, he settles into a new home at Theatre on the Square and continues the comic examination of male-female relationships every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Why’d you come back to Indy?

You say it like it’s a bad thing. Seriously, my wife and two kids live here. I was living in Las Vegas, doing nine shows a week. I would only get home for about 10 days every quarter.

What’s Indiana got that Vegas doesn’t?

It’s got me. Also, neighborhoods. And people who know each other, and kids who still call their friends’ parents “Mr.” and “Mrs.”

Sum up Defending the Caveman.

We explain men to women and women to men.

Anyone ever do more than heckle?

There’s a spear onstage that I use as a prop. A guy came walking down the center aisle, drunk as a skunk, demanding the spear so he could use it on his parole officer.

Do you apply anything from the play to your marriage?

Women on average speak about 7,000 words in a day, while men speak 2,000. Sometimes my wife would like me to listen to her without trying to fix whatever’s wrong. And there are times when men like women to sit with them and not talk. Because guys traditionally bond while doing things that involve no talking, like hunting. If you’re hunting and you talk too much, you scare the game away.

This article appeared in the February 2014 issue.