There comes a time in every artist's life where they have to take a leap of faith.
When Tony winner David Hyde Pierce, now back on Broadway in Pirates! The Penzance Musical at the Todd Haimes Theatre, was finding his footing in the early 1980s, he was on the brink of becoming a perpetual student. A graduate of Yale, Pierce was hopping from one post-graduate training program to another when Tony winner Edward Herrmann offered him an earnest challenge. “Before you spend any more time and money going to school, why don't you go to New York and see if you even want to do this?”
Herrmann pulled a few strings to get Pierce seen for his very first New York audition. After a few months of selling neckties at Bloomingdale's, the phone rang. Christopher Durang had written a new play, Beyond Therapy, and there was a small part that would allow Pierce to get his foot in the door acting alongside John Lithgow, Diane Wiest, Jack Gilpin, and more.
“My character didn't appear until almost the end of the play, very late in the second act,” Pierce recalls. “For two weeks, I sat in the rehearsal room. I was there every single day, and just watched and absorbed these amazing actors… finally, near the end of the second week, I got the chance to get up and say my line, and they all fell out of their chairs laughing. It was the most gratifying thing.”
Pierce swallows back emotion, his eyes alight with mischief. “I found out that John had passed around a note saying, ‘David's been sitting here for two weeks, when he says his first line, we should all fall out of our chairs laughing.’ Which was a very lovely way to welcome me to the theatre.”
Once the rehearsal period was through, and the company moved to Broadway, it was time to either sink or swim. “First preview, I came out and did my line, and the audience fell out of their seats laughing.” Pierce smiles wide, reliving the treasured memory. Sadly, the triumph of that moment was short-lived. “Two weeks later, we closed, and after the curtain came down, I sat down on the stage and cried. I thought about Herrmann's words, ‘Why don't you go to New York and see if you even want to do this?’ And I thought, ‘Oh. Yeah. I do’. I got stars, I got laughs, it closed in two weeks, and I couldn’t wait to do it again.”
To learn more about where Pierce’s stage career went from there, including numerous near-death experiences on stage, how Spamalot marked the end of Fraiser, and his endless admiration for ensemble performers, check out his full walk down memory lane in the video above.
