David Hyde Pierce, the very mannequin of a contemporary Main-Normal, in

All David Hyde Pierce has to do is step out on stage, and he will get applause, even earlier than he launches into the idiotic tongue-twister from “The Pirates of Penzance”:

I’m the very mannequin of a contemporary Main-Normal,
I’ve data vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I do know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historic
From Marathon to Waterloo, so as categorical

With virtually no expression on his face, babbling away, every kind of commotion round him, he is humorous.

I requested, “Why do you assume ‘much less is extra’ may be humorous?”

“Nicely, I feel a lot of theater, rightly, is MORE,” Pierce replied. “Typically, what’s sudden in theater is somebody doing much less.”

“Is there a temptation to overact?”

“At all times,” he mentioned. “You remind me of a fantastic line from ‘Frasier,’ which was, ‘If much less is extra, assume how far more MORE will likely be!'”

It’s because of his 11-year run on the TV mega-hit “Frasier” that Pierce has the popularity, and may afford to select and select his roles. He is the Main-Normal in “Pirates! The Penzance Musical,” a jazzy re-working of the Gilbert & Sullivan basic, transplanted to New Orleans.

Pierce confirmed us one of many Gilbert & Sullivan scores from his summer season camp from the Nineteen Seventies (“It is virtually as previous as I’m”), which was additionally the rating he used for an episode of “Frasier” the place he, Kelsey Grammer and David Ogden Stiers sang from “Penzance.”

I requested, “What does Gilbert & Sullivan imply to you?”

“Hmm. Nicely, it should imply one thing, ‘trigger it is … I am getting emotional,” Pierce replied. “Fascinated with the query, I assume it is simply, it is simply because it has been threaded by my life for therefore lengthy.”

In his dressing room on the Roundabout Theatre, the wall is roofed with images of people that have been within the dressing room earlier than: “Well-known individuals, numerous them pricey pals of mine,” he mentioned. “I will be up there finally. Custom is essential to us. It is being conscious that you just’re a part of one thing greater.”

Pierce’s “Pirates” dressing room is filled with nods to the emotional touchstones that outline him, together with one of the crucial necessary: {a photograph} of him speaking to his dad a couple of present he was doing, “at a time after I did not even know that that is what I used to be going into, had no concept what was mendacity forward,” he mentioned.

Pierce’s father and his grandfather have been beginner performers. “The illness runs within the household,” he mentioned. “I simply hadn’t been recognized, I assume!”

He got down to be a live performance pianist. He nonetheless performs on daily basis, however determined to grow to be an actor as an alternative whereas he was a pupil at Yale. 

And what introduced him to comedy? “I feel it has to do with what I used to be drawn to,” Pierce mentioned. “I watched reruns of ‘The Dick Van Dyke Present’ and ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ and ‘All within the Household.’ After I was a youngster, ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ got here to American tv on PBS, and my head blew off. I liked Alec Guinness. Oh, and Buster Keaton. Oh my God, Buster Keaton!”

It is unimaginable to not see a touch of Buster Keaton in Pierce’s well-known ironing board scene from “Frasier”:

Pierce mentioned, “I do need individuals to have the ability to snigger.”

“Why? What does that imply to you? Why is it necessary?”

“I assume it is the notion of connection,” he mentioned. “For instance, doing a comic book movie just isn’t practically as fulfilling for me as doing a comic book play. In a comic book play, you are feeling from the viewers the connection. That is what I am in it for. That is the place I began out. I like that.”

For nearly so long as he is been in it, his companion alongside the way in which, his husband since 2008, has been actor-writer Brian Hargrove. They met at an audition, turned pals, and solely later found they have been each homosexual. “Brian had me over to dinner at his condo to do my taxes,” mentioned Pierce.

“I used to have a tax enterprise in addition to an actor,” mentioned Hargrove.

“That is not a metaphor; that is really what he was doing. Tax practitioner! After which we have been going to see this film, and it got here up. We went again to his condo, after which, as Brian places it, I by no means left.”

That was in 1983. It was Hargrove who advised transferring to California, which led to Pierce being forged as Dr. Niles Crane alongside Kelsey Grammer in “Frasier.” Forty years, 4 Emmys and two Tonys later, he selected to not be within the “Frasier” reboot. On the time he was enjoying Julia Kid’s husband, Paul, on HBO. “I have been very pleased with what initially got here to me, after which after I’ve been capable of make decisions in my profession and the alternatives I’ve made,” Pierce mentioned. “My creativity is fueled by change and by variety.”

Which is why David Hyde Pierce mentioned sure to “Pirates” – and a brand new probability to make individuals snigger in one in every of his previous favorites.

For my army data, although I am plucky and adventury,
Has solely been introduced all the way down to the start of the century;
However nonetheless, in issues vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I’m the very mannequin of a contemporary Main-Normal!

WEB EXTRA: David Hyde Pierce and Martha Teichner sing Gilbert & Sullivan
Martha Teichner joins actor David Hyde Pierce (now starring on Broadway in “Pirates! The Penzance Musical”) in performing a Gilbert & Sullivan tongue-twister, “I Am the Very Mannequin of a Fashionable Main-Normal.”

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an prolonged interview with David Hyde Pierce

      
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Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: George Pozderec.