Former Resident Writing HBO Show

By: Joe Tennis | TriCities.com
Published: July 26, 2009

ABINGDON, Va. – For Colette Burson, the success continues in Hollywood.
A couple of years ago, the former Abingdon-area resident got a chance to write an episode of an FX series called “The Riches,” developed by her partner, Dmitry Lipkin.
Now Burson, who attended Abingdon High School in the 1980s, is working on a new adult comedy series for HBO called “Hung.”
Burson developed the project with Lipkin. It follows the adventures of a high school basketball coach, who was once a star athlete.
“ ‘Hung’ is funny and sexy yet still intelligent,” Burson said during a recent interview. “Along with Dmitry, I am the creator and executive producer of ‘Hung.’ I wrote seven of the 10 episodes and am responsible for the creative content of all of them.”
Among the fans of “Hung” is Burson’s father, John Burson, a retired coal mine reclamation inspector and an Abingdon resident.
“What do I like about this one?” John Burson asked. “It has a plot behind it, and it’s just sort of building. It’s more or less about relationships between females and males – and they sort of work through that.”
Burson remembered his daughter as a natural-born storyteller.
As a little girl, Colette Burson would invent tales to entertain her younger brother, Jason Burson, now a resident of Bristol, Tenn.
Sometimes, Colette would go into her closet and then reappear within a short moment, saying she had just been around the world to many different countries, her father said.
“And she was a very studious person,” John Burson added. “She would sit in the hallway and read books. She was headstrong and very intelligent.”
Born at Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, Md., Colette Burson moved to Lebanon, Va., at age 10 and relocated to Abingdon when she was 12. She later graduated from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Va.
She has not lost touch with home.
When writing the “Cinderella” episode of “The Riches,” Burson needed a prison number for one of her characters. She ended up using “2-4-2-1-0” – a zip code for Abingdon.
“Hung” stars Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker, the former athlete, and Jane Adams as an eccentric artist.
“I have worked on ‘Hung’ from 10 in the morning to past midnight on most days of the past eight months,” Colette Burson said. “This project also requires a deeper commitment to the material. Instead of thinking up an hour or two – like a movie – for a character, Dmitry and I have to imagine 10 episodes’ worth. This means I carry the characters around in my head and think about them more extensively and in greater depth than I usually do.”

YOU SHOULD KNOW
What: “Hung”
When: Airs 10 p.m. on Thursdays on HBO
Web: www.hbo.com/hung/

Former Resident Writing HBO Show

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