Post by lemur on May 3, 2009 7:20:50 GMT -5
Stage to Screens: David Hyde Pierce
By Michael Buckley
3 May 2009[/b]
From Playbill.com
Christopher Durang's 1982 play Beyond Therapy, starring John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest, marked the Broadway debut of David Hyde Pierce, who was billed as David Pierce. It wasn't until he joined SAG, and there already was a member with his name, that he added Hyde.
"That's my middle name, not hyphenated. When I attend an event, I never know if tickets will be under Hyde Pierce, or Pierce." The former was what Charles Isherwood used in his New York Times review of Samson Raphaelson's Accent on Youth, the Manhattan Theatre Club revival, now at the Samuel J. Friedman (formerly Biltmore) Theatre.
According to the critic, the Tony winner (Curtains) "hits his comic marks with the precision we've come to expect from his priceless turn on the long-running, exceptionally literate sitcom Frasier."
The series ran 11 seasons, from 1993 to 2004, earning Hyde Pierce as many Emmy nominations, of which he won four, as Niles Crane, brother of Kelsey Grammer's title character.
What attracted Hyde Pierce to Accent on Youth, a comedy that premiered on Broadway 75 years ago? "Dan Sullivan [who directed] brought it to me. Dan and I worked together on The Heidi Chronicles [in 1990, Hyde Pierce and Christine Lahti succeeded Boyd Gaines and Joan Allen in the Wendy Wasserstein play], and I had a great time.
"Dan was excited about this play. That got me interested. For a 1934 comedy [by Samson Raphaelson, concerning a May-December romance between a playwright and his secretary], it's a surprising play. I expected something wackier, or along the lines of a Noel Coward comedy.
"We put together a reading, and the final piece of the puzzle, for me, was Mary Catherine Garrison, who plays my secretary. Her part isn't easy, but she got it instantly. We have a good rapport."
Nicholas Hannen and Constance Cummings starred in the original play, and Hannen reprised his role, opposite Greer Garson, on the London stage. Has Hyde Pierce seen any of the (three) movie versions? "I have, though none of us has been able to find the first one [1935, starring Herbert Marshall and Sylvia Sidney]. I don't know if it exists."
In 1950, the playwright character was changed to a composer (Bing Crosby), songs were added, and the title changed to Mr. Music, co-starring Nancy Olson, and (as themselves) Groucho Marx, Peggy Lee, Marge and Gower Champion. Notes Hyde Pierce, "It's dated, but not bad."
Much closer to the story, he says, "is But Not for Me [1959, with Clark Gable playing a producer, and Carroll Baker, his love interest] — but it's one of the worst movies ever made. Ella [Fitzgerald] sings the title song during the opening credits. One should watch the credits — and stop.
"All of us watched Trouble in Paradise, a 1932 Ernst Lubitsch film [written by Samson Raphaelson], with Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins, and Kay Francis. People don't know the movie, because it's about jewel thieves, and soon after its release, the Production Code came into play.
"They decided that it glorified criminals, and pulled it. Peter Bogdanovich introduces it [on DVD] as one of the three seminal American comedies of its day, along with Twentieth Century and It Happened One Night. It's one of the great comedies."
I'd read that Hyde Pierce watches Frasier re-runs, often with a martini or glass of wine. True? "Well, depending on what's in the refrigerator. Last night, I think it was a piece of goat cheese. I don't watch it consistently, but it brings back great memories, and still makes me laugh."
Does he have the opportunity to see John Mahoney (his TV dad) on this season's In Treatment? "Absolutely! I hadn't watched it; I don't watch much television. But someone reminded me that John was doing it. I watched it, and I love the show. John is fantastic! He's a born actor, like a fish in water."
Was it difficult to get beyond the role of Niles? "Outside of New York, anyone who knows me, if they know me, knows me as Niles. It was hard to get away from Niles while the show was on. Movies offered were more of the same.
"Coming right out of Frasier, I was so lucky to do Spamalot, because it was a different medium, with different characters, and a different style of humor. I wasn't asking people to accept me as Willy Loman.
"Spamalot was a great way to shake it up, and Curtains [the John Kander-Fred Ebb-Rupert Holmes show] took me even further away. I expected it to be harder to get away from Niles. I think that audiences have become more sophisticated."
His first sitcom experience was 1992's The Powers That Be, starring John Forsythe. The short-lived series cast Hyde Pierce as Theodore Van Horn, an unhappily married, suicidal congressman. He was disappointed when it ended, but TV success was waiting in the wings, with Frasier, the long-running spin-off of Cheers.
Over the years, in New York and regionally, Hyde Pierce has appeared in several plays, among them Holiday (as Ned, "a great role"); Summer; That's It, Folks!; Candida; The Seagull; The Cherry Orchard (at BAM, and on tour in Japan and the Soviet Union); Tartuffe; Hamlet (as Laertes); The Maderati; Much Ado About Nothing; Zero Positive; Waiting for Godot (understudy to Bill Irwin, as Lucky, "in the [1988] Lincoln Center production, starring Robin Williams and Steve Martin"); Elliot Loves; It's Only a Play; Trial by Jury; The Boys from Syracuse; The Guys; and An Oak Tree.
During the last season of Frasier, Scott Ellis, who directed several Frasier episodes, offered Hyde Pierce the lead in Curtains, playing Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, a police detective investigating a backstage murder in Boston. However, he was committed to do Spamalot, but Fred Ebb's death postponed the mystery musical, and Hyde Pierce was able to do both. Hyde Pierce, said the New York Times review, "steps into full-fledged Broadway stardom."
Curtains co-star Karen Ziemba greatly admires him. The Contact Tony winner tells me, "David was a great leader [of the company]. We were an extremely happy family. He was protective of everyone. He cares about how people feel, and about their lives. I think that he has incredible sex appeal, and he's one of the funniest people ever. Sex appeal and humor — what tops that?"
Youngest of four (he has two sisters and a brother), Hyde Pierce was "born in a hospital in Albany [NY], but grew up in Saratoga Springs." He began acting in high school, and (initially) studied classical piano at Yale.
"Half-way through college I started taking [drama] classes. Before that, I had acted purely for fun. After graduation, I came to New York." It was there he met another struggling actor, Brian Hargrove (now a writer-producer-director). After 25 years together, they married in October 2008.
Bright Lights, Big City (1988) marked Hyde Pierce's movie debut. Among his films: Little Man Tate (star-director Jodie Foster had seen the actor when both attended Yale), Crossing Delancey, The Fisher King, Sleepless in Seattle and Oliver Stone's Nixon (as John W. Dean). Extensive voiceovers include A Bug's Life, Hellboy, The Amazing Screw-On Head, and TV's The Simpsons.
He devotes much of his time to the Alzheimer's Association (his father suffered from the disease). Hyde Pierce hosts their annual "Forget Me Not" gala, June 1, at the Pierre Hotel. He also supports AIDS and LGBT organizations.
Are there any dream roles? "No. I've done some Chekhov — an extraordinary challenge, almost impossible to do right, but certainly worth trying — and I hope there's more Chekhov in my future. I also love creating roles."
Is there a role that has been the most satisfying? "I've been so lucky in my career — not in terms of success, although that's true — but in the parts I've gotten to play, people I've gotten to work with. I liked playing Niles. Was it more fun than anything else? No."
Three of the biggest influences on his career were Edward Herrmann, Mike Nichols and Uta Hagen. Herrmann "told me to go to New York, and see if I really wanted to do this." Nichols directed him in Wolf, Waiting for Godot, Elliot Loves, and Spamalot.
Recalls Hyde Pierce, "Mike told us, 'One of the things you have to do is alter your favorite moment, the moment when you know how to get your guaranteed laugh.' He called it 'your favorite squeak and turn. Change it. Do something different one night.'
"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 onstage. If you let go of individual moments, you might discover something that never, in your wildest dreams, would you have found."
Remembering Uta Hagen, with whom he co-starred in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (in 2001) at the Geffen Playhouse, in L.A., Hyde Pierce says, "I learned from her, just by being onstage with her. I absorbed so much about what it is to really exist onstage. That was a life-and-career-changing experience, aside from the fact that I loved her. We had the best time. We just clicked. I can say, without modesty, we were great together.
"Ms. Hagen and I were going to do the play on Broadway, and then she had a stroke. I said I wouldn't do it without her." (Polly Bergen and Mark Hamill co-starred in a 2003 short-lived Broadway production.) Hyde Pierce has just written the foreword for a reissue of Hagen's first book Respect for Acting. I mention my interview with her, when I asked her to sign the book. "Did she fling it across the room?" he asks.
No. She said, "I have disassociated myself from that book. If people ask me to sign it, I write, 'Throw it away — Uta Hagen.'" Instead, she gave me a copy of her second book, A Challenge for the Actor, which she signed.
Explains Hyde Pierce, "After the first book, she would go around the country, and sit in on acting classes, and see people doing these god-awful, unwatchable exercises. Then, they'd turn to her proudly, and say, 'We were doing what you taught in your book.'
"She thought: 'Oh, my God, what I have done?' She wrote Challenge for the Actor to try to make it clearer. I think that one should read both books. We remained friends till the day she died [Jan. 14, 2004]. It was one of the great relationships of my life.
"While working on Accent on Youth, I thought of her a lot. There's enough meat in the play, so that the other actors and I can explore new approaches. That's the thing I really took away from working with Ms. Hagen."
By Michael Buckley
3 May 2009[/b]
From Playbill.com
Christopher Durang's 1982 play Beyond Therapy, starring John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest, marked the Broadway debut of David Hyde Pierce, who was billed as David Pierce. It wasn't until he joined SAG, and there already was a member with his name, that he added Hyde.
"That's my middle name, not hyphenated. When I attend an event, I never know if tickets will be under Hyde Pierce, or Pierce." The former was what Charles Isherwood used in his New York Times review of Samson Raphaelson's Accent on Youth, the Manhattan Theatre Club revival, now at the Samuel J. Friedman (formerly Biltmore) Theatre.
According to the critic, the Tony winner (Curtains) "hits his comic marks with the precision we've come to expect from his priceless turn on the long-running, exceptionally literate sitcom Frasier."
The series ran 11 seasons, from 1993 to 2004, earning Hyde Pierce as many Emmy nominations, of which he won four, as Niles Crane, brother of Kelsey Grammer's title character.
What attracted Hyde Pierce to Accent on Youth, a comedy that premiered on Broadway 75 years ago? "Dan Sullivan [who directed] brought it to me. Dan and I worked together on The Heidi Chronicles [in 1990, Hyde Pierce and Christine Lahti succeeded Boyd Gaines and Joan Allen in the Wendy Wasserstein play], and I had a great time.
"Dan was excited about this play. That got me interested. For a 1934 comedy [by Samson Raphaelson, concerning a May-December romance between a playwright and his secretary], it's a surprising play. I expected something wackier, or along the lines of a Noel Coward comedy.
"We put together a reading, and the final piece of the puzzle, for me, was Mary Catherine Garrison, who plays my secretary. Her part isn't easy, but she got it instantly. We have a good rapport."
Nicholas Hannen and Constance Cummings starred in the original play, and Hannen reprised his role, opposite Greer Garson, on the London stage. Has Hyde Pierce seen any of the (three) movie versions? "I have, though none of us has been able to find the first one [1935, starring Herbert Marshall and Sylvia Sidney]. I don't know if it exists."
In 1950, the playwright character was changed to a composer (Bing Crosby), songs were added, and the title changed to Mr. Music, co-starring Nancy Olson, and (as themselves) Groucho Marx, Peggy Lee, Marge and Gower Champion. Notes Hyde Pierce, "It's dated, but not bad."
Much closer to the story, he says, "is But Not for Me [1959, with Clark Gable playing a producer, and Carroll Baker, his love interest] — but it's one of the worst movies ever made. Ella [Fitzgerald] sings the title song during the opening credits. One should watch the credits — and stop.
"All of us watched Trouble in Paradise, a 1932 Ernst Lubitsch film [written by Samson Raphaelson], with Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins, and Kay Francis. People don't know the movie, because it's about jewel thieves, and soon after its release, the Production Code came into play.
"They decided that it glorified criminals, and pulled it. Peter Bogdanovich introduces it [on DVD] as one of the three seminal American comedies of its day, along with Twentieth Century and It Happened One Night. It's one of the great comedies."
I'd read that Hyde Pierce watches Frasier re-runs, often with a martini or glass of wine. True? "Well, depending on what's in the refrigerator. Last night, I think it was a piece of goat cheese. I don't watch it consistently, but it brings back great memories, and still makes me laugh."
Does he have the opportunity to see John Mahoney (his TV dad) on this season's In Treatment? "Absolutely! I hadn't watched it; I don't watch much television. But someone reminded me that John was doing it. I watched it, and I love the show. John is fantastic! He's a born actor, like a fish in water."
Was it difficult to get beyond the role of Niles? "Outside of New York, anyone who knows me, if they know me, knows me as Niles. It was hard to get away from Niles while the show was on. Movies offered were more of the same.
"Coming right out of Frasier, I was so lucky to do Spamalot, because it was a different medium, with different characters, and a different style of humor. I wasn't asking people to accept me as Willy Loman.
"Spamalot was a great way to shake it up, and Curtains [the John Kander-Fred Ebb-Rupert Holmes show] took me even further away. I expected it to be harder to get away from Niles. I think that audiences have become more sophisticated."
His first sitcom experience was 1992's The Powers That Be, starring John Forsythe. The short-lived series cast Hyde Pierce as Theodore Van Horn, an unhappily married, suicidal congressman. He was disappointed when it ended, but TV success was waiting in the wings, with Frasier, the long-running spin-off of Cheers.
Over the years, in New York and regionally, Hyde Pierce has appeared in several plays, among them Holiday (as Ned, "a great role"); Summer; That's It, Folks!; Candida; The Seagull; The Cherry Orchard (at BAM, and on tour in Japan and the Soviet Union); Tartuffe; Hamlet (as Laertes); The Maderati; Much Ado About Nothing; Zero Positive; Waiting for Godot (understudy to Bill Irwin, as Lucky, "in the [1988] Lincoln Center production, starring Robin Williams and Steve Martin"); Elliot Loves; It's Only a Play; Trial by Jury; The Boys from Syracuse; The Guys; and An Oak Tree.
During the last season of Frasier, Scott Ellis, who directed several Frasier episodes, offered Hyde Pierce the lead in Curtains, playing Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, a police detective investigating a backstage murder in Boston. However, he was committed to do Spamalot, but Fred Ebb's death postponed the mystery musical, and Hyde Pierce was able to do both. Hyde Pierce, said the New York Times review, "steps into full-fledged Broadway stardom."
Curtains co-star Karen Ziemba greatly admires him. The Contact Tony winner tells me, "David was a great leader [of the company]. We were an extremely happy family. He was protective of everyone. He cares about how people feel, and about their lives. I think that he has incredible sex appeal, and he's one of the funniest people ever. Sex appeal and humor — what tops that?"
Youngest of four (he has two sisters and a brother), Hyde Pierce was "born in a hospital in Albany [NY], but grew up in Saratoga Springs." He began acting in high school, and (initially) studied classical piano at Yale.
"Half-way through college I started taking [drama] classes. Before that, I had acted purely for fun. After graduation, I came to New York." It was there he met another struggling actor, Brian Hargrove (now a writer-producer-director). After 25 years together, they married in October 2008.
Bright Lights, Big City (1988) marked Hyde Pierce's movie debut. Among his films: Little Man Tate (star-director Jodie Foster had seen the actor when both attended Yale), Crossing Delancey, The Fisher King, Sleepless in Seattle and Oliver Stone's Nixon (as John W. Dean). Extensive voiceovers include A Bug's Life, Hellboy, The Amazing Screw-On Head, and TV's The Simpsons.
He devotes much of his time to the Alzheimer's Association (his father suffered from the disease). Hyde Pierce hosts their annual "Forget Me Not" gala, June 1, at the Pierre Hotel. He also supports AIDS and LGBT organizations.
Are there any dream roles? "No. I've done some Chekhov — an extraordinary challenge, almost impossible to do right, but certainly worth trying — and I hope there's more Chekhov in my future. I also love creating roles."
Is there a role that has been the most satisfying? "I've been so lucky in my career — not in terms of success, although that's true — but in the parts I've gotten to play, people I've gotten to work with. I liked playing Niles. Was it more fun than anything else? No."
Three of the biggest influences on his career were Edward Herrmann, Mike Nichols and Uta Hagen. Herrmann "told me to go to New York, and see if I really wanted to do this." Nichols directed him in Wolf, Waiting for Godot, Elliot Loves, and Spamalot.
Recalls Hyde Pierce, "Mike told us, 'One of the things you have to do is alter your favorite moment, the moment when you know how to get your guaranteed laugh.' He called it 'your favorite squeak and turn. Change it. Do something different one night.'
"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 onstage. If you let go of individual moments, you might discover something that never, in your wildest dreams, would you have found."
Remembering Uta Hagen, with whom he co-starred in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (in 2001) at the Geffen Playhouse, in L.A., Hyde Pierce says, "I learned from her, just by being onstage with her. I absorbed so much about what it is to really exist onstage. That was a life-and-career-changing experience, aside from the fact that I loved her. We had the best time. We just clicked. I can say, without modesty, we were great together.
"Ms. Hagen and I were going to do the play on Broadway, and then she had a stroke. I said I wouldn't do it without her." (Polly Bergen and Mark Hamill co-starred in a 2003 short-lived Broadway production.) Hyde Pierce has just written the foreword for a reissue of Hagen's first book Respect for Acting. I mention my interview with her, when I asked her to sign the book. "Did she fling it across the room?" he asks.
No. She said, "I have disassociated myself from that book. If people ask me to sign it, I write, 'Throw it away — Uta Hagen.'" Instead, she gave me a copy of her second book, A Challenge for the Actor, which she signed.
Explains Hyde Pierce, "After the first book, she would go around the country, and sit in on acting classes, and see people doing these god-awful, unwatchable exercises. Then, they'd turn to her proudly, and say, 'We were doing what you taught in your book.'
"She thought: 'Oh, my God, what I have done?' She wrote Challenge for the Actor to try to make it clearer. I think that one should read both books. We remained friends till the day she died [Jan. 14, 2004]. It was one of the great relationships of my life.
"While working on Accent on Youth, I thought of her a lot. There's enough meat in the play, so that the other actors and I can explore new approaches. That's the thing I really took away from working with Ms. Hagen."
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