Buffalo Theatre Ensemble actor and director Kurt Naebig, who studied at The Juilliard School from 1986 to 1990, is a good example of how students should pay attention when getting an education.

“When I was at Juilliard and drama schools, all the stuff I learned I thought I would never use,” said Naebig, who is performing the one-person play, “Stove Toucher,” from Nov. 26-Dec. 19 in the Playhouse Theatre of the McAninch Arts Center at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. “I thought a lot of it was superfluous. Now these things come into play.

“Doing a solo show calls on everything I have learned as an actor,” said Naebig, who also wrote the play. “I use my voice. I use my body. And I am connecting directly with the audience.”

“Stove Toucher” is a funny coming-of-age story set in Cicero and Oak Park. It follows Naebig during the 1970s skateboard boom when he began competing in skateboard events around the Midwest and winning several of them. Naebig and a friend, 15-year-old Tim Schutt, opened their own skateboard shop, Wheels of Progress, in Oak Park. Naebig was 13 years old at the time.

“And then I did many things that I shouldn’t have done: drug addiction, drinking,” Naebig said. “I was in a treatment center at 16 years of age.”

“Stove Toucher” will be presented by the Buffalo Theatre Ensemble at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and at 3 p.m. Sundays from Nov. 26-Dec. 19 in the Playhouse Theatre of the McAninch Arts Center at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. “Stove Toucher” contains adult themes and language.

“The play is high energy,” said Naebig about the show that covers several time periods: the 1970s, the 2000s and current day. “I am playing every character, sometimes three or four people in the same scene. In one scene I portray me, my father, and Tim Schutt, my 15-year-old partner in the skateboard business, as we are trying to get a business license at Oak Park Village Hall.”

Naebig, who lives in Lombard, has worked professionally in theater, film, television and radio for more than 30 years, and has been teaching and coaching actors since 1992. In addition to graduating from Juilliard, Naebig also has studied at the Moscow School of the Arts in Russia.

Naebig is the former Artistic Director of The Theatre of Western Springs, and has worked as an actor at Steppenwolf Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, among others.

He has appeared in such films as “The Express,” “The Relic” and “Dillinger,” and has been in seen in the television shows “Fargo,” “Empire,” “Chicago PD” and “Prison Break.”

For Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, Naebig has directed “The 39 Steps,” “Don’t Dress For Dinner,” “Trumbo: Red White and Blacklisted” and “Leading Ladies,” among others.

“Stove Toucher,” which opens Buffalo Theatre Ensemble’s 2021-22 season, is directed by Ensemble managing artistic director Connie Canaday Howard.

“BTE has always sought to ‘give stories life,’ ” Canaday Howard said. “For this season we are especially interested in presenting plays that provide heartwarming looks, sometimes touching and sometimes hysterical, at people on the brink of great change and ‘Stove Toucher’ fits this perfectly.”

Naebig is fine with someone other than himself directing his one-person show.

“Connie and I are like-minded,” he said. “She might say ‘Maybe this section could be faster’ or ‘That’s not the best idea.’ But she has dance background, so that helps with the movements in the show, like showing how to ride a wall in a skateboard park.”

Naebig said it took about eight months to put the show together. The playwright received some assistance from actress and storyteller Julie Ganey, a member of 2nd Story, a storytelling theater collective in Chicago. Ganey helped Naebig construct a show based on his memories.

“In the writing, the challenge was putting together multiple timelines and have it make sense,” Naebig said. “I did not want the play to be too linear.”

As for the play’s title, Naebig indicated his wife had a friend who said that people are sometimes drawn to sensory things that you shouldn’t do, like touching a hot stove.

“And that’s like skateboarding,” Naebig said. “You are always pushing the edge.”

Randall G. Mielke is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.