David Hyde Pierce, the very model of a modern Major-General, in "Pirates! The Penzance Musical"
All David Hyde Pierce has to do is step out on stage, and he gets applause, even before he launches into the idiotic tongue-twister from "The Pirates of Penzance":
I am the very model of a modern Major-General,I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical
With practically no expression on his face, babbling away, all kinds of commotion around him, he's funny.
I asked, "Why do you think 'less is more' can be funny?"
"Well, I think so much of theater, rightly, is MORE," Pierce replied. "Sometimes, what's unexpected in theater is someone doing less."
"Is there a temptation to overact?"
"Always," he said. "You remind me of a great line from 'Frasier,' which was, 'If less is more, think how much more MORE will be!'"
It is thanks to his 11-year run on the TV mega-hit "Frasier" that Pierce has the recognition, and can afford to pick and choose his roles. He's the Major-General in "Pirates! The Penzance Musical," a jazzy re-working of the Gilbert & Sullivan classic, transplanted to New Orleans.
Pierce showed us one of the Gilbert & Sullivan scores from his summer camp from the 1970s ("It's almost as old as I am"), which was also the score he used for an episode of "Frasier" where he, Kelsey Grammer and David Ogden Stiers sang from "Penzance."
I asked, "What does Gilbert & Sullivan mean to you?"
"Hmm. Well, it must mean something, 'cause it's … I'm getting emotional," Pierce replied. "Thinking about the question, I guess it's just, it's just because it's been threaded through my life for so long."
In his dressing room at the Roundabout Theatre, the wall is covered with photographs of people who were in the dressing room before: "Famous people, a lot of them dear friends of mine," he said. "I'll be up there eventually. Tradition is very important to us. It's being aware that you're part of something bigger."
Pierce's "Pirates" dressing room is full of nods to the emotional touchstones that define him, including one of the most important: a photograph of him talking to his dad about a show he was doing, "at a time when I didn't even know that that's what I was going into, had no idea what was lying ahead," he said.
Pierce's father and his grandfather were amateur performers. "The disease runs in the family," he said. "I just hadn't been diagnosed, I guess!"
He set out to be a concert pianist. He still plays every day, but decided to become an actor instead while he was a student at Yale.
And what brought him to comedy? "I think it has to do with what I was drawn to," Pierce said. "I watched reruns of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' and 'Mary Tyler Moore' and 'All in the Family.' When I was a teenager, 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' came to American television on PBS, and my head blew off. I loved Alec Guinness. Oh, and Buster Keaton. Oh my God, Buster Keaton!"
It's impossible not to see a hint of Buster Keaton in Pierce's famous ironing board scene from "Frasier":
Pierce said, "I do want people to be able to laugh."
"Why? What does that mean to you? Why is it important?"
"I guess it's the perception of connection," he said. "For example, doing a comic film is not nearly as enjoyable for me as doing a comic play. In a comic play, you feel from the audience the connection. That's what I'm in it for. That's where I started out. I love that."
For almost as long as he's been in it, his partner along the way, his husband since 2008, has been actor-writer Brian Hargrove. They met at an audition, became friends, and only later discovered they were both gay. "Brian had me over to dinner at his apartment to do my taxes," said Pierce.
"I used to have a tax business as well as an actor," said Hargrove.
"That's not a metaphor; that's actually what he was doing. Tax practitioner! And then we were going to see this movie, and it came up. We went back to his apartment, and then, as Brian puts it, I never left."
That was in 1983. It was Hargrove who suggested moving to California, which led to Pierce being cast as Dr. Niles Crane alongside Kelsey Grammer in "Frasier." Forty years, four Emmys and two Tonys later, he chose not to be in the "Frasier" reboot. At the time he was playing Julia Child's husband, Paul, on HBO. "I've been very happy with what originally came to me, and then when I've been able to make choices in my career and the choices I've made," Pierce said. "My creativity is fueled by change and by diversity."
Which is why David Hyde Pierce said yes to "Pirates" – and a new chance to make people laugh in one of his old favorites.
For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General!
WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with David Hyde Pierce
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Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: George Pozderec.
Martha Teichner is a correspondent for "CBS News Sunday Morning." Since 1993, she has reported on a wide range of issues, including politics, the arts, culture, science, and social issues impacting our world.
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