Before he went away to New York, still longer before he went away to L.A., and eons before he returned to Chicago a successful working actor, David Eigenberg had decided to be a carpenter. Since graduating from Naperville Central in 1982, Dave had pinballed around: jobs in auto parts and hardware stores, a here-and-gone stint at the University of Iowa. Then Washburne Trade School at 31st and Kedzie. But Chicago has always been good to Dave, and it came through for him then: the Chicago Public Schools, of which Washburne was a part, went on strike.
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| David Eigenberg, as Christopher Herrmann, on Chicago Fire |
“I had nothing to do,” Dave recalls. “Didn’t know how long the strike was going to be. A week into it, there was an audition.”
The play was One Shining Moment, a Drury Lane Water Tower Place musical featuring a solid cast of professional actors, including Kevin Anderson as John F. Kennedy. About the only real acting Dave had done to that point was as a 12-year-old, when he appeared in a Naperville community production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Happy Birthday, Wanda June. But he got cast in the chorus.
“I’m always looking for something to engage, excite me,” Dave says. “A piece of my brain has to be stimulated.”
To say it was a straight road from a down-time chorus gig to TV stardom would be dishonest: Dave’s serpentine path took him to the U.S. Marine Corp Reserve, acting school in New York, the audition circuit, one-off parts on shows like Homicide: Life on the Streets, ER, King of Queens, Ghost Whisperer and NCIS. He traded crappy apartments in downtown Naperville for crappy apartments in Manhattan. Even his breakthrough, winning the part of Steve Brady on the popular show Sex in the City, was a grind. He’d auditioned a bunch of times for various episodes--three or four-minute improv sessions designed to showcase his talents—and never won those roles. And even though Dave impressed enough to inspire the producers to create the role for which he became known, his job as Steve Brady was season-to-season, and when the series ended he found himself scrapping for work again.
“Failure helps you appreciate success,” Dave says.
A few years back, Dave landed the part of Christopher Herrmann on Chicago Fire. Dave’s Herrmann is a fiercely loyal, feisty fire fighter. He has a big heart and a ton of courage and a hair-trigger temper, a self-effacing guy who thinks drinking with his buddies is a proper conclusion to all things good or bad. A Chicago guy.
Critics and fans love the show, which is filmed entirely in Chicago. It is a Chicago three decades removed from the one Dave knew as a restless and self-described “belligerent young man.” Naperville, for example, has grown from a small simple town dotted with family farms to a large affluent town filled with corporate centers. But home is home, and with the show being renewed for a third season something occurred to Dave that he’d pretty much ruled out: he should come back.
And so, despite the distance from the TV and movie industry, despite the weather that Dave’s wife Chrysti very much wanted to avoid, and despite the fact that so much had changed since his adolescent days, Dave and his family bought a single-family bungalow in Bucktown. Dave and Chrysti, along with five-year-old son Louie and five-month old daughter Myrna, are busily settling into their new Chicago existence.
Dave agreed to join us as our special guest at this year silent auction fundraiser in part because he admires, respects and is inspired by great literature, including, but not limited to, inaugural inductee Nelson Algren.
“When you read something that sends you to another place, that does something to you that you never thought…it can be an amazing experience,” Dave says. “What we know about most people, one of the few things other than the bones of man, fossil remnants, arrowheads…the thing that has been preserved is the stories they’ve told.”
In 20 years living in New York and another seven in Burbank, Dave experienced the theater and film world in nearly every conceivable facet: acting in Broadway and off-Broadway plays; appearing in TV shows, independent and feature films; building stages; running lights; as a stage manager and art director. Though Dave is most known for his TV roles, he’s had a really fine film career, notable for the fact that he’s been in interesting and good movies like Mothman Prophecies, See You in September and Goodye, Ludlow.
“I’ve always been interested in the whole thing,” Dave says. “I’d trade all of it if I could write.”
Dave says he has written a lot, but never with any success. His own writing efforts have given him an even greater appreciation and respect for scriptwriters, such as those on Chicago Fire who fuss over every word.
Fans of Herrmann and Brady will no doubt find a lot to like in the real-life David Eigenberg. He’s a thoughtful, hard working family man, intent on raising his children himself despite the crazy schedule his TV life demands, a serious actor who’s not at all impressed with himself.
The whole point of the silent auction fundraiser is to raise money; Dave knows that. He’s willing to trade a precious evening off in favor of helping our little organization keep going. With the money we raise Aug. 24, we’ll come closer to realizing our potential of being the primary champion of Chicago literature, and building a database of its books and authors. And of course continuing to create programming and tributes, such as our Fuller Award honoring Harry Mark Petrakis Oct. 4 at the National Hellenic Museum and our fifth annual induction ceremony Dec. 6 at Ganz Hall honoring Margaret Anderson, David Hernandez, Edgar Lee Masters, Shel Silverstein, Willard Motley and Margaret Walker.
For those who buy a ticket (just twenty dollars), come out to bid on various item (everything from theater tickets to a Carl Sandburg pilgrimage in Galesburg, IL), the bonus is: you’ll get to meet Dave. It’s not the kind of event where you stand in line and get an autograph, but more the kind of event where you wander over and ask Dave, “Hey, tell me about Sara Jessica Parker?”
Tickets are on sale now, and we are still accepting donations of items to be auctioned off.
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Donald G. Evans is the founder and executive director of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. He is the author of the novel Good Money After Bad and short story collection An Off-White Christmas, as well as the editor of the anthology Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting Till Next Year. He is the Chicago editor of the Great Lakes Cultural Review. He serves on the American Writers Museum's Chicago Literary Council and the committee that selects the Harold Washington Literary Award.
donaldgevans@hotmail.com
donaldgevans@hotmail.com
