Tony nominee Steven Boyer is now part of the cast of NBC’S Trial & Error, a tongue-in-cheek true crime comedy. Boyer plays Dwayne Reed, the goofy but kindhearted lead investigator tasked with helping lawyer Josh Segal, played by Nicholas D’Agosto, prove that poetry professor Larry Henderson, played by Tony winner John Lithgow, did not kill his wife. But Boyer started out in theatre and gained critical acclaim, a Lucille Lortel Award and a Tony nomination for his performance as painfully shy Jason and his potty-mouthed puppet Tyrone in 2015’s Hand to God. Now, as the actor brings new hijinks to the fictional Southern town of East Peck on television, he talked with Playbill to prove his theatre bonafides.
What was your first professional job?
Steven Boyer: I was a kid in Columbus, Ohio, and I did a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I played one of the “no-neck monsters.”
What was the stage show that has most influenced you?
There was this production of Ionesco’s The Chairs that was mind-melting. It totally ripped me out of my seat, which is a weird thing to say about an Ionesco play being revived on Broadway. It really grabbed me and made me see that you can do something that isn’t just plot point, plot point, plot point, but that actually resonates on a deeper level.
What’s been the biggest challenge in your career?
It’s weird because it has nothing to do with work onstage. It has to do with maintaining your sanity when you’re not working and knowing that, even though you might be unemployed for long stretches of time, you have to have this belief that you actually have something worth sharing.
What’s been the most rewarding experience onstage for you?
No doubt being in Hand to God, going to the Tony Awards, having so many people whose opinions I respect and admire come see the show and come back afterwards and tell me the nicest, most glowing things. You dream of an opportunity like that and think it may never come along. I got to meet so many performers and artists whose work I admire and they got to see my work. I can’t emphasize how much that meant to me.
Who is a collaborator from theatre that made you better?
Some of my closest working relationships are with playwrights. People like Rob Askins and Nick Jones have called upon me to throw myself into situations that I never thought anyone would ask me to and they have put faith in me. [Hand to God director] Moritz von Stuelpnagel is someone who I feel like I owe so much to because he cast me when no one else would. I feel like we speak the same language. He understands comedy and takes it seriously in a way that I really, really appreciate.