Post by lemur on Jan 8, 2008 9:40:45 GMT -5
Men Don't Leave
By Tom Nondorf
07 Jan 2008
You've by now heard about David Hyde Pierce remaining in his Tony Award-winning role as Lieutenant Cioffi in Curtains well into 2008. Great news for the show as well as Broadway fans who feel a sense of pride when a show's marquee players stay on board for awhile. Great news for Pierce as well, to hear him tell it ...
Question: It's exciting that you elected to stay on with Curtains through Labor Day weekend. Often when big names come to Broadway, it seems like the stay is so brief.
David Hyde Pierce: I think I've had enough experience in theatre and other media that I know a good thing when I see it. All around, the people I'm working with, the part, what I get to do, the singing and dancing, all that stuff, I recognize that once I leave, something like this will probably never come along again.
Q: That said, how do you keep it fresh, doing it as often as you do?
Pierce: I was really lucky. I did a play a few years ago, a two-person play with Uta Hagen, and I learned from her, not because she told me, but just by simply being on stage with her. I learned about just going out and doing it. You do your work ahead of time. You do your preparation, and once you walk on that stage, it just happens. You don't have to try to make it different. Just by nature of it being a different night, a different audience, it will be different. It happens moment by moment, scene by scene, between all the actors and the audience each time. It continually amazes me how that really works. It's just sort of an alchemy. You don't have to radically reinvent it each time or trick yourself. You just allow it to be different.
Q: You don't have to constantly remind yourself that the audience is different every night?
Pierce: No. The other great instructor I had was Mike Nichols when we did Spamalot. He would talk to us and say, "You're going to get some audiences that aren't as vocal or don't laugh as much," and he said one of the things you have to do is [alter] your favorite moment, the moment when you absolutely know how to get your guaranteed laugh. He said, "Change it. Do something different one night." He said, "You can always do it again the same way later on if you want to, but once you give yourself the freedom to not care about any given moment and how the audience responds to it, then you have total freedom on stage, and as we've all learned over the years, just because an audience is less vocal does not indicate how involved they are in the show. So being independent of an audience's reaction and available for whatever's going on on stage seem to keep it fresh.
Q: We've seen those audiences that seem to be dead, and it turns out they are on the edge of their seats.
Pierce: Oh yeah. And we've all had situations where a friend comes backstage and you say, "Oh God, you were here tonight? It was such a terrible audience!" And they say, "What are you talking about, you nut? We loved it!"
Q: Do you think it would surprise audiences to know how much the players communicate backstage about how well specific jokes are landing, etc.?
Pierce: They'd be amazed at how much communication goes on onstage in front of them about how the audience is responding [laughs]. You can say a lot with a look to another actor that just says, "Oy!"
Q: You've been humble about your dancing skills and all the help you got from choreographer Rob Ashford and others, but are you feeling a lot more comfortable in yourself at this point in the run?
Pierce: That's a good question. It's sort of a two-edged sword. On one hand, I feel much more comfortable and in command both of my dancing and my singing now that I've been doing the show for awhile, but the more you do it, you also realize that you still can't replace a lifetime spent training in dance and singing. There's only so far I can go, especially with the dancing. I'm proud of what I can do, but I remain in awe of the people who are really out there dancing. It's hard for me eight shows a week. I cannot imagine how the ensemble people do it.
Q: In another sense of "comfortable," do you feel like you have to think about your dancing a little less now?
Pierce: Ha. Yes, or I'm able to think about it in a different way. I'm able to make sure I'm supporting in the right place so I don't throw my back out or that I don't drop poor Jill [Paice] who I'm dancing with. I can free myself. On New Year's Eve, they had a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers marathon on TV. I happened to be watching it because I love them anyway. But the next day instead of thinking about this step or that step, I was able to just give myself the image of imagining I was Fred Astaire, which is exactly what the character is doing in that moment anyway. He happens to be imagining that he's Gower Champion, and now that we've been running it — we've already passed our 300th show — now that it is in my bones, the movements and how to do the dance, that allows me to let my actor's imagination work on the spirit of the dance. That's something that will continue to grow as long as I'm in the show because there's always room for improvement.
Q: I guess it's kind of the difference between that time before you learned your lines and once you have them, what you are able to do with a character after that.
Pierce: Yeah, and for me, the similarity is that in the acting of the show, no matter how hard you try, there are moments when you find that you are still acting, and I'm a big believer in not acting on stage. And the great thing about a long run is piece by piece and inch by inch you start to excavate those moments, many of which you are unaware of and free yourself from them and discover that something will work if said or acted in a completely different way that you didn't plan on, and the shape of the show takes care of itself.
Q: Do you have any advice for others looking to get into dance and musical theatre at a similar stage of their career?
Pierce: I think something that would be really important is to start 20 years ago. That would be my first piece of advice [laughs].
Q: I'm interested in how actors relate to their theatres. How do you feel about the Hirschfeld?
Pierce: I am deeply in love with the Hirschfeld Theatre. It is such a great place for actors and for audiences because these old theatres, they were built without thinking of sound systems and microphones and all that. You can, both vocally and as an actor, be on that stage and do nothing, and they'll see it from the very back row in the mezzanine. It's fantastic, the way the seats are arranged, the distance between [the cast] and the back wall of the house, even the way the pit is set up with this wonderful redwood in the back of that pit. When you hear the band, the sound that comes out of there — especially with John Kander's music and the great orchestration — the place comes alive. And, for our show in particular, which is set in 1959, the vintage and style of the theatre blend seamlessly with the vintage and style of the show, and it becomes all one event.
Q: I see you once worked in Los Angeles with Jason Graae, who we spoke to a couple months back.
Pierce: Listen, my experience with Jason is one of the reasons I went into musicals! He and I had done The Boys From Syracuse for Reprise! out there, which is like Encores here. We played the two slaves, and I had a blast doing that, and he was so great. Working with him, seeing someone who is such a great actor and with such a great voice and wickedly funny, it was very inspiring. I thought, "This is something that I should certainly pursue."
Q: Movie-wise, I have to ask about Wet Hot American Summer. Have you any recollections of this fine piece of film?
Pierce: I sure do. First of all, I loved making it, but the clearest recollection I have is it takes place at a summer camp, but we shot it in the very early spring in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and it was freezing cold, and we were all running around in short shorts, and people were swimming and water skiing and doing all this stuff, and occasionally one of the great things in the movie is you can see people's breath when they are talking in the midst of the "summer." There's a lot of really good acting in that movie from people who are pretending that they're warm and having a good time.
Q: Would you like to one day be involved in a movie musical?
Pierce: I can't imagine that that would be anything but hell. Famous last words, but doing a movie is hard enough in terms of the set-up and the waiting and all of that, but then to add ... Oh my God, no! Absolutely not, because to me, the thrill of the theatre to begin with, and the real thrill of being in a musical is to be there in front of an audience with the orchestra playing underneath you and the music carrying you and the way it lifts everybody up, and to be doing that on a soundstage with: "Do it again, do it again. Now we're going to do it from this angle." I think I would have to hang myself.
Q: So if someone ponied up for a film of Curtains?
Pierce: I would say "yes" immediately.
(modified by Jules to change the date to 2008!)
www.playbill.com/news/article/114039.html
By Tom Nondorf
07 Jan 2008
You've by now heard about David Hyde Pierce remaining in his Tony Award-winning role as Lieutenant Cioffi in Curtains well into 2008. Great news for the show as well as Broadway fans who feel a sense of pride when a show's marquee players stay on board for awhile. Great news for Pierce as well, to hear him tell it ...
Question: It's exciting that you elected to stay on with Curtains through Labor Day weekend. Often when big names come to Broadway, it seems like the stay is so brief.
David Hyde Pierce: I think I've had enough experience in theatre and other media that I know a good thing when I see it. All around, the people I'm working with, the part, what I get to do, the singing and dancing, all that stuff, I recognize that once I leave, something like this will probably never come along again.
Q: That said, how do you keep it fresh, doing it as often as you do?
Pierce: I was really lucky. I did a play a few years ago, a two-person play with Uta Hagen, and I learned from her, not because she told me, but just by simply being on stage with her. I learned about just going out and doing it. You do your work ahead of time. You do your preparation, and once you walk on that stage, it just happens. You don't have to try to make it different. Just by nature of it being a different night, a different audience, it will be different. It happens moment by moment, scene by scene, between all the actors and the audience each time. It continually amazes me how that really works. It's just sort of an alchemy. You don't have to radically reinvent it each time or trick yourself. You just allow it to be different.
Q: You don't have to constantly remind yourself that the audience is different every night?
Pierce: No. The other great instructor I had was Mike Nichols when we did Spamalot. He would talk to us and say, "You're going to get some audiences that aren't as vocal or don't laugh as much," and he said one of the things you have to do is [alter] your favorite moment, the moment when you absolutely know how to get your guaranteed laugh. He said, "Change it. Do something different one night." He said, "You can always do it again the same way later on if you want to, but once you give yourself the freedom to not care about any given moment and how the audience responds to it, then you have total freedom on stage, and as we've all learned over the years, just because an audience is less vocal does not indicate how involved they are in the show. So being independent of an audience's reaction and available for whatever's going on on stage seem to keep it fresh.
Q: We've seen those audiences that seem to be dead, and it turns out they are on the edge of their seats.
Pierce: Oh yeah. And we've all had situations where a friend comes backstage and you say, "Oh God, you were here tonight? It was such a terrible audience!" And they say, "What are you talking about, you nut? We loved it!"
Q: Do you think it would surprise audiences to know how much the players communicate backstage about how well specific jokes are landing, etc.?
Pierce: They'd be amazed at how much communication goes on onstage in front of them about how the audience is responding [laughs]. You can say a lot with a look to another actor that just says, "Oy!"
Q: You've been humble about your dancing skills and all the help you got from choreographer Rob Ashford and others, but are you feeling a lot more comfortable in yourself at this point in the run?
Pierce: That's a good question. It's sort of a two-edged sword. On one hand, I feel much more comfortable and in command both of my dancing and my singing now that I've been doing the show for awhile, but the more you do it, you also realize that you still can't replace a lifetime spent training in dance and singing. There's only so far I can go, especially with the dancing. I'm proud of what I can do, but I remain in awe of the people who are really out there dancing. It's hard for me eight shows a week. I cannot imagine how the ensemble people do it.
Q: In another sense of "comfortable," do you feel like you have to think about your dancing a little less now?
Pierce: Ha. Yes, or I'm able to think about it in a different way. I'm able to make sure I'm supporting in the right place so I don't throw my back out or that I don't drop poor Jill [Paice] who I'm dancing with. I can free myself. On New Year's Eve, they had a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers marathon on TV. I happened to be watching it because I love them anyway. But the next day instead of thinking about this step or that step, I was able to just give myself the image of imagining I was Fred Astaire, which is exactly what the character is doing in that moment anyway. He happens to be imagining that he's Gower Champion, and now that we've been running it — we've already passed our 300th show — now that it is in my bones, the movements and how to do the dance, that allows me to let my actor's imagination work on the spirit of the dance. That's something that will continue to grow as long as I'm in the show because there's always room for improvement.
Q: I guess it's kind of the difference between that time before you learned your lines and once you have them, what you are able to do with a character after that.
Pierce: Yeah, and for me, the similarity is that in the acting of the show, no matter how hard you try, there are moments when you find that you are still acting, and I'm a big believer in not acting on stage. And the great thing about a long run is piece by piece and inch by inch you start to excavate those moments, many of which you are unaware of and free yourself from them and discover that something will work if said or acted in a completely different way that you didn't plan on, and the shape of the show takes care of itself.
Q: Do you have any advice for others looking to get into dance and musical theatre at a similar stage of their career?
Pierce: I think something that would be really important is to start 20 years ago. That would be my first piece of advice [laughs].
Q: I'm interested in how actors relate to their theatres. How do you feel about the Hirschfeld?
Pierce: I am deeply in love with the Hirschfeld Theatre. It is such a great place for actors and for audiences because these old theatres, they were built without thinking of sound systems and microphones and all that. You can, both vocally and as an actor, be on that stage and do nothing, and they'll see it from the very back row in the mezzanine. It's fantastic, the way the seats are arranged, the distance between [the cast] and the back wall of the house, even the way the pit is set up with this wonderful redwood in the back of that pit. When you hear the band, the sound that comes out of there — especially with John Kander's music and the great orchestration — the place comes alive. And, for our show in particular, which is set in 1959, the vintage and style of the theatre blend seamlessly with the vintage and style of the show, and it becomes all one event.
Q: I see you once worked in Los Angeles with Jason Graae, who we spoke to a couple months back.
Pierce: Listen, my experience with Jason is one of the reasons I went into musicals! He and I had done The Boys From Syracuse for Reprise! out there, which is like Encores here. We played the two slaves, and I had a blast doing that, and he was so great. Working with him, seeing someone who is such a great actor and with such a great voice and wickedly funny, it was very inspiring. I thought, "This is something that I should certainly pursue."
Q: Movie-wise, I have to ask about Wet Hot American Summer. Have you any recollections of this fine piece of film?
Pierce: I sure do. First of all, I loved making it, but the clearest recollection I have is it takes place at a summer camp, but we shot it in the very early spring in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and it was freezing cold, and we were all running around in short shorts, and people were swimming and water skiing and doing all this stuff, and occasionally one of the great things in the movie is you can see people's breath when they are talking in the midst of the "summer." There's a lot of really good acting in that movie from people who are pretending that they're warm and having a good time.
Q: Would you like to one day be involved in a movie musical?
Pierce: I can't imagine that that would be anything but hell. Famous last words, but doing a movie is hard enough in terms of the set-up and the waiting and all of that, but then to add ... Oh my God, no! Absolutely not, because to me, the thrill of the theatre to begin with, and the real thrill of being in a musical is to be there in front of an audience with the orchestra playing underneath you and the music carrying you and the way it lifts everybody up, and to be doing that on a soundstage with: "Do it again, do it again. Now we're going to do it from this angle." I think I would have to hang myself.
Q: So if someone ponied up for a film of Curtains?
Pierce: I would say "yes" immediately.
(modified by Jules to change the date to 2008!)
www.playbill.com/news/article/114039.html