Part One

Part Two

In the meantime watch David on ‘Live! with Kelly’ as he makes the exciting announcement, talks Close Up Space and how he’s finding it harder to get up when he falls over.

So says Close Up Space director Leigh Silverman as she talks David’s performance in the reading of the play last Spring. David and the rest of the cast add their thoughts about Molly Smith Metzler’s Close Up Space in this excellent video from Theatermania.com (after the sponsor message).

Opening night is Monday December 19th. For tickets and info visit
the Close Up Space website

Digging David’s geek chic look

For five years, Cause Celeb has been highlighting celebrities’ works on behalf of specific causes. To celebrate the anniversary, we went back to the beginning and re-interviewed our first celebrity, actor David Hyde Pierce.

When we first interviewed Pierce he had already worked with the Alzheimer’s Associationfor 10 years; now five years later, he is still hard at work for the association. The Alzheimer’s Association provides support, knowledge and awareness to those suffering from or caring for people with the disease in addition to raising money for research. On Sunday, Oct. 23, the Alzheimer’s Association will be holding the Walk to End Alzheimer’s at Riverside Park and Hyde Pierce will be participating in.

Pierce is probably best known for his role on the television show “Frasier.” He has also appeared in movies including “Wet Hot American Summer” and “Sleepless in Seattle” as well as appearing in numerous Broadway shows including “Monty Python’s Spamalot.” Recently he made his directorial debut with the musical “It Shoulda Been You.”

Interview by Jesse Strauch

Q: What is your involvement with the Alzheimer’s Association and has it changed over the years?

Pierce: Over the years I’ve gotten more and more involved with the Alzheimer’s Association. I started out I think almost 15 years ago just showing up as a celebrity at their memory walk in Los Angeles back when I was on “Frasier” and I got more and more involved. I went to Washington and testified for more funding for research for Alzheimer’s, went around the country doing that. I became a national board member for eight years, now I’m an honorary board member. I’ve been to Washington a lot and most recently I’m a member of an advisory council that’s part of a National Alzheimer’s Project Act, which is a federal law that was passed the end of last year unanimously by both houses to make the fight against Alzheimer’s a national priority in the same way that HIV/AIDS and heart disease has been.

Q: In your 15-plus years how has public perception changed towards Alzheimer’s?

Pierce: Certainly there is more awareness. I think partly because of the work of the Alzheimer’s Association, partly because there is many more appearances in the media on television and film, you start to see characters that are dealing with Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately there is a lot more awareness because there are a lot more people with the disease; there are well over 5 million now and those numbers are growing and the people who are taking care of those people numbers are growing. I would say over the years we have been making progress in research and awareness and taking care of people. But the disease itself is making more progress than we are in the number of lives it’s taken.

Q: Do you think the future looks brighter for ending Alzheimer’s?

Pierce: I think it’s entirely up to us. If we don’t make more rapid progress than we are currently making then we’ll go from 5 million people now to 16 million people by the middle of the century, and that doesn’t account for all of the people who are taking care of those people and the stress and illness and the mortality rate of those people. It’s a particularly devastating disease for those family members and caregivers.

We have now before us a great opportunity with this National Alzheimer’s Project Act. It is an opportunity for us to confront this disease and make the kind of progress that has been made with HIV/AIDS and heart disease and cancer in the past years. Ultimately, though, it is up to us, to all of us, to the American people and to their representatives about whether we face the challenges and make all the effort necessary or if we ignore it and just let this sort of tidal wave crash over us.

Q: What would help us defeat Alzheimer’s? Are there new medicine and treatments coming or do we still need a lot of research? What would help us move forward in the best way?

Pierce: Right now funding for most major disease is in the billions of dollars. Federal funding for research, federal funding for Alzheimer’s is in the millions. Alzheimer’s at this point — this is a change in the last five years since I first talk to you guys — has advanced to become the sixth-leading cause of death in the country. So we’re in a time where people are not interested in the government spending more money and there’s great concern about the deficit, there’s great concern about health care and the cost of health care and social security, Medicare and Medicaid. All of those concerns will be effectively wiped out if we don’t focus resources, our attention and also finance resources on more research and more access.

We already know great ways to help take care of people to help make their lives easier when they have the disease and to help their family’s along but there’s an astonishing number of people in this country who have no access to this, who aren’t aware. It’s such a lonesome disease if you don’t know about the resources of the Alzheimer’s Association, the support groups and the outreach, and the referral services they have. I’m shocked that working so many years on this that it is still such an isolated disease that so many people aren’t aware of what it is and what treatment and services are available. That to me is not a huge expense. We still need billions of dollars for research. We can only fund about 25 percent of the proposals that we get now.

It’s unbelievable, we would never in a million years go to fight a war and say, “hey that’s great but we’re only going to pay for about 25 percent of it, we’ll just hope it turns out OK.” But in terms of loss of life and devastation to the economy this is a war with a lot of collateral damage and I’m very hopeful that because the disease is so terrible and because it is so widespread and because we already started to make breakthroughs in early diagnosis and better care for people with Alzheimer’s, the country as a whole will start to see that there is hope and see that there is potential, that there’s a chance to turn Alzheimer’s into what polio now is. It was at one time the scourge of this country and now is a disease at least in this country we don’t really talk about or think about. That is the potential, that is the hope but as with polio we have to as a nation face it together and do what must be done.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to add?

Pierce: Just that all over the country we have the Walk to End Alzheimer’s, which is a national fundraiser that happens different times with different chapters. It raises money locally to help support services and research. It helps raise awareness, it bring people together to get information about clinical trials and the support services that are necessary. This Sunday I’m going to be doing the New York City Walk to End Alzheimer’s but I would encourage people to look for that in their area and support it if they can. You don’t have to have had someone in your family who has had Alzheimer’s to be a part of this because the sad statistics are, that you one day will, if we’re not able to slow it down or stop it.

In advance of tonight’s official opening of It Shoulda Been You
we found a couple of great interviews, not with David, but we’re posting links because we know David Hyde Pierce fans will enjoy reading them.

In the first, from Centraljersey.com the show’s two mothers, the incomparable Tyne Daly and the delicious Harriet Harris have some sweet things to say about first time director David.

In the second, in Culture Vultures – the official JerseyArts.com blog, Brian Hargrove, It Shoulda Been You book writer and David’s husband, talks the show and its history, working with your significant other and everybody getting back to their theatre roots.

Note – we may never forgive Centraljersey.com for “Miles Crane” (sic)

Post Frasier with David Hyde Pierce

Tom Alvarez
Indianapolis Performing Arts Examiner
August 1, 2011

Ever since “Frasier,” the hit NBC sitcom in which David Hyde Pierce played prim and proper psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane, went off the air in 2004, the Emmy-winning actor and comedian has not let any grass grow under his feet.

On Saturday, Aug. 6, Pierce will join renowned musician and entertainer Michael Feinstein for the opening-night celebration of the Tarkington Theatre, the last of three venues built at Carmel’s Center for the Performing Arts.

The Tarkington will become the home of the Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre and other performing-arts groups.

In 2005 Pierce originated the role of Sir Robin in the Broadway production of “Monty Python’s Spamalot”. In 2007 he won the Tony Award for his role as Lieutenant Frank Cioffi in the musical comedy “Curtains.”

Most recently, he appeared in the acclaimed London and Broadway production of David Hirson’s “La Bete.”

Currently Pierce stars in “The Perfect Host,” a film that was released on July 1.

Speaking recently by phone, Pierce, who last appeared with Feinstein in a 2009 holiday show at Feinstein’s at Lowe’s Regency in New York City, talked about his upcoming Tarkington appearance and some future projects.

They include his directing debut in “It Shoulda Been You,” a musical that opens at New Jersey’s George Street Playhouse in October, and an acting assignment in Manhattan Theatre Club’s “Close Up Space,” which begins rehearsals in December.

Have you and Michael performed together since the 2009 holiday show at Feinstein’s?
No. Since then I’ve been away. I went to London to do a play last year and then I brought it back to Broadway and he’s been on his own, so this will be the first chance we’ve had to reunite.

A New York Times review of that show referred to the two of you as “refined musical clowns,” comparing the two of you to Penn and Teller. You as introvert and Michael as extrovert. How would you describe your chemistry?
I would say, smooth as silk. That’s how I would describe our chemistry, because it was really effortless. We have been longtime friends. Then, besides our collaboration on stage, there was our collaboration in putting the whole show together, which took several months of research, working on different songs and coming up with what seemed to be the best program. It was just amazing and so much fun. I think what the audiences in New York and the critics responded to was that infectiousness – that feeling of fun.

Are you performing any of that same material in the show for the Tarkington opening?
Yes, there are some real great standards by Cole Porter, and also I’m going to sing a song called “Penny in My Pocket.” It was a song Jerry Herman wrote which was cut from “Hello Dolly.” And I’m also going to sing a song [“You Won’t Succeed on Broadway”] I originated on Broadway in “Spamalot.”

Prior to knowing Michael, were you a fan of the American Songbook?
It’s probably too much to say that I was a fan. I certainly appreciate that music and knew it somewhat, but when you get to be a friend of Michael’s – along with that you get an incredible education in the American Songbook. Not just the most popular songs but also the most obscure and everything in between. And as you all well know he is an incredible font of knowledge about that entire repertoire and I would say I became a much bigger fan and a much better educated fan after having met Michael.

Who are some of your favorite composers
Well certainly Cole Porter is up at the top. Jerry Herman in a completely different way is a favorite, but I would say Cole Porter would be my first choice.

Knowing Michael, I presume that you are aware of his role as artistic director at the Center for the Performing arts as well as the Michael Feinstein Foundation headquartered the Palladium?
Yes, I think it’s just amazing and not surprising. Michael is endlessly generous and always looking for ways that his talent and his expertise can find new outlets and new ways of being creative. I think this is just an example of his ability to do that.

What do you know specifically, if anything, about the Tarkington, the theater where you are performing for the grand opening?
Well I gather it’s gigantic.

Did you know it’s going to be the new home of the Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre as well as others?
No I didn’t realize that. It’s an on-going theatrical institution that is going to live at the Tarkington?

Yes. The Civic is a community theater. I know that you started acting in high school. Did you perform in community theater when you were younger?
I did not do any community theater, but my dad – this was before I came along – my dad wanted to be an actor. He wanted to be a professional actor, and when he got out of college it was the Depression, and so instead of going to New York to be an actor, he went to work in his dad’s insurance agency and ultimately met my mom and then became an insurance agent.

He fulfilled his dreams by acting in community theater a lot in my hometown in upstate New York, Saratoga Springs. At one of my recent performances on Broadway, a women’s group that my mom had belonged to came to the show, and they brought with them a folder of reviews of my dad from all of his shows that he had done, and this was back in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s.

So you can appreciate why this is so special – that this theater will be the home of one of the oldest community theaters in the country?
Yes, I think that’s just great. You know, what’s amazing is during these economic times, when arts are usually the first to go because there are so many places in this country where people don’t understand or appreciate the arts – not just as entertainment, but they are really important in people’s lives. How thrilling that in the middle of the country that you have found a community that has embraced the arts, they have said, “No, we believe in this, we believe this is going to make our community a better place and a more attractive place for people to come and play and to come and work.” I think that’s very exciting.

Other than your appearance here, you have some other exciting projects coming up. Are you looking forward to directing “It Shoulda Been You?”
Boy, you did your research. I’m actually in the middle of it right now, because even though we don’t start rehearsals until September, we’ve all the pre-production of doing the casting of the show, meeting the designers. We’re going to have a workshop reading next week, so I’m already in the thick of it. It’s a great challenge, but so far I’m taking to it, so we’ll see what happens when the curtain actually goes up.

Was it your decision alone to cast Tyne Daly and Harriet Harris?
Well, I would say everything is a group decision. As a director, the buck stops with me, but Harriet I have known forever. She’s an old friend – we’ve worked together many times – and Tyne I knew through business, but we hadn’t worked together. But they were both perfect for the roles, and in fact Harriet is playing a role that was written for her.

It’s about an inter-faith couple right?
Yes, it’s a Jewish family and a WASP family. It takes place at the wedding of the daughter of the Jewish family and the son of the WASP family.

Is it a big musical? How many people are there in the cast?
There are 13 people, so it’s bigger than a little chamber musical but smaller than a large musical. It’s what you call a “book musical” – meaning it’s not a lot of big production numbers, so it’s more about the story.

Do you anticipate special chemistry between Daly and Harris?
Oh yes, because they are both really strong performers and unique performers. Tyne brings an incredible kind of earthy power to the role of the Jewish mother, and Harriet brings this kind of wackiness, slightly off-kilter energy to the tipsy WASP mom. I think those two coming together will be something to behold.

I also read that your partner Brian [Hargrove] wrote the book for this musical. What’s it like, working with your life partner on a show like this? Does he give you input in terms of making changes? How does that play out?
That was a big question, whether the relationship would survive the production. The reality is – as long as we’ve been together, which is nearly 30 years now, I’ve advised him on the scripts that he has written, he’s advised me and given me notes as an actor on the roles that I’ve been given. So this is really just a heightened version of something we have been doing all our lives together, and yes, it’s already been a great collaboration.

He’s had some terrific ideas, directorial ideas that I have found very useful and I will definitely use, and I’ve been going over the script and making things clearer or making things stronger or whatever. I think we work really well together, and what I’ve tended to do as a director is put together a team of actors and a team of designers who all work well together and who are all willing and able to collaborate.

My experience over the years working with the best directors, I’ve seen how the best shows can also be the most fun to put on. I don’t see any reason why you should have to choose between having a good time and having a good show, so that’s my goal.

While working with the fine directors you mentioned, did you consciously try to absorb their style and technique?
No, not only was I not consciously absorbing. I didn’t ever want to direct. People had asked me to direct for years, and I never was interested. It wasn’t until this script came along and I’d seen it in several workshops. They were looking for a director, and it’s the first time I looked at something and thought, “Oh, this is the thing I think that I can maybe have something to contribute to.”

But now that I am in the process of directing, I’m finding that both consciously and unconsciously, all of the advice I had been given as an actor, all the directives, good and bad, I have worked with, I can now put to good use. It’s like Richard III, where his past comes back to haunt him on the eve of the battle. They all come back and talk to me, all the people I have worked with, and give me ideas about the way to talk to actors, the way not to talk to actors, how to get the best out of people.

As far as your next acting engagement “Close Up Space,” tell me about the literary editor character you play.
He is clearly a mess; he’s very strict and very particular. And he’s also at a very difficult time in his life because he’s become so uncompromising in his role as an editor that he has driven away a lot of his office. Not only has he driven away his office, he has alienated his daughter, and the play is about how all of that works itself out, how his daughter, who has been shunted away to a private school, returns to confront him and how they work through their relationship. It sounds very serious – it’s got serious undertones – but essentially it’s a comedy.

It’s been a while since your stint on Frasier. No doubt you will be forever identified as that role of Niles – so how would you describe your personal relationship with that character now?
I think of him as an old friend, and like any old friend whenever I stumble upon him I’m happy to see him. So I think of him very fondly, and although our lives have taken different paths, whenever we do cross paths, whenever I catch a re-run of Frasier, it’s always great to see him again.

What’s been the oddest place you have and seen a re-run of yourself?
Well … probably at the gym. Someone was on one of those Stairmaster or something like that, and they had a television screen and they were watching a Frasier episode. I had to walk by, and it was one that I really liked, and of course there was no sound because she was wearing a headset. I just stood there four feet behind her in the middle of the gym watching the Frasier episode. Fortunately, I don’t think anyone saw me, because I think it would have looked extremely egotistical, but I was just caught up because I was having a good time.

Do fans who only know you as Niles ever confuse you the actor with that character?
I don’t have a problem with it, but it doesn’t happen that much because people are very sophisticated and understand that you are an actor and that you play a role. Frankly, what happens is people just come up – it just happened in the grocery store yesterday – this woman came up to me and said, “I just want to say I love you.” The only way she knows me is from Frasier, but that’s not a hard thing to embrace. That’s a pretty nice thing to have happen to you.

Tell me about your work with the Alzheimer’s Association and how it was that you became involved. Do you have a family member or a friend with the disease?
Yes, I have had family members affected with Alzheimer’s. My grandfather had Alzheimer’s, and my dad had dementia at the end of his life, which was probably also Alzheimer’s, so I have had personal experience with it.

I’ve had personal experience seeing the devastating effect it has, not only on families, but also their spouses who care for them. I’ve been working with the Alzheimer’s Association now since the mid-’90s, doing everything that I can to help out. I help with fundraising. I’ve been an international board member for eight years. I’ve worked a lot in Washington with members of Congress.

It’s a very important issue to me personally, but it’s also one that’s becoming more and more critical to the country because of the aging of the population, so we’re really trying to get the word out to let people understand it’s serious.

With the passing of the same-sex marriage bill in New York, can we expect to hear wedding bells for you and Brian?
We’re already married. We were California residents and married in the window when it became legal there [prior to the passing of Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage]. Friends of ours are getting married in New York. We are very happy for them and pleased to live and work in a state where our right to be married is recognized.

It’s a pity, especially since David’s year is shaping up to be a very interesting one indeed. Not only is The Perfect Host on release in the US, but he’s about to direct his first musical and will star in a play at the end of the year. We’re sad we won’t be documenting it here, but the site will remain up for the foreseeable future, and we’ll keep tweeting.

A huge thanks to everyone who’s commented and supported the site over the last three years – it’s been fun. We leave you with some great Perfect Host press:

David Hyde Pierce’s perfect life (TheaterMania)
The Hot Seat (Time Out New York)
David Hyde Pierce will be your host (New York Times)
Hilarious Q&A at the Suicide Girls blog
Perfectly Pierce (The Advocate)

After 11 seasons spent playing the Jungian analyst Niles Crane on Frasier and a parallel career on the stages of Broadway productions including Monty Python’s Spamalot, Curtains and La Bête, David Hyde Pierce, the Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor is ready for a change of scenery. He’ll be sitting in the front of the house when he makes his directorial debut with It Shoulda Been You, a musical comedy that will be presented at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ, this fall.

It Shoulda Been You, which chronicles the behind-the-scenes goings on at a wedding between a Jewish bride and a Catholic groom, will star Tyne Daly as the bride’s mother, and is scheduled to begin performances on Oct. 4 with an opening night scheduled for Oct. 14.

So was this transition to directing a long-held artistic desire that Mr. Pierce has waited years to fulfill? “No,” he said unequivocally in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “Exactly the opposite. People have told me for many years that I should direct. Even back when I was doing Frasier, the camera people on Frasier would say, ‘Oh, you should really direct.’ And I’ve never wanted to until now.”

What made the difference, Mr. Pierce said, was the musical itself, which features a book and lyrics by Brian Hargrove and music by Barbara Anselmi, and which he said he had been a fan of in various incarnations. (It Shoulda Been You made its New York City debut in 2009 at the National Alliance for Musical Theater’s Festival of New Musicals.)

Mr. Pierce said he also responded to the musical’s philosophy on parenthood, which, he said, “is similar to what I’ve come to learn about directing, that you hope for the best and you embrace the unexpected, and ultimately you let people find their own way.”

Not that Mr. Pierce will be coming to the director’s chair totally cold: he said he was given permission to sit in on technical rehearsals for the current Broadway revivals of Anything Goes (directed by Ms. Marshall) and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (directed by Rob Ashford) to prepare for his work.

If he didn’t learn enough from those experiences, Mr. Pierce said, he had “the perfect plan” for It Shoulda Been You: “Between the theater and the producers and the designers and the cast that we put together, I won’t have to direct. I can only hurt it. I’m just going to sit there and shut up.”

Mr. Pierce said his experience directing It Shoulda Been You will be “very indicative of whether this is a new path for me or a onetime thing.” At the least, it allows him to go back to those encouraging, enthusiastic camera people on Frasier and say he did it.

And tell them, he said: “You were wrong.”

The Perfect Host kicked off proceedings at the USA Film Festival in Dallas, and D Magazine featured an interview with David and director Nick Tomnay about the movie.

This is your first feature-length film, but I noticed you had a short in 2001 called The Host. Is this a spin-off of that?

Nick Tomnay: Yes. The Host was a short I did in Australia. Same story. And I expanded it into a feature.

So tell me how the idea for the story came about.

NT: It was based on a story I heard a friend of mine tell me about an incident that occurred with him and a guy that escaped from prison, which I thought was pretty interesting. I took that story and then kind of channeled some loneliness that I was feeling at the time into the script. Then it just sort of evolved, as these things do, and became funnier and darker.

At what point during that nine, 10-year process did David get involved? That’s such a key part, getting the right person for Warwick.

NT: Towards the end. It had gone through three different production companies and the final production company, we got the money, we got everything lined up. We just needed to find an actor. So we then went through that process: talking, drawing up a list, and thinking about who would do that. Then one of the producers rang me up and said, “I’ve just been watching Frasier and what about David?” And I said, “Yeah, that’s a really good idea.” And so a meeting was set up between David and I, and we talked, and he agreed.

And you’ve been doing a lot of Broadway and theater work lately, so this is kind of a good segue, the “I’ve just been watching Frasier bit.” I mean, in terms of the parts you are looking for, are you concerned with breaking out of that role, or is it something that you can embrace?

David Hyde Pierce: Both. I loved the part on Frasier and loved doing it. And what was great about this particular film is it allows, when you first see my character you think, “Oh, OK, this is like we’ve seen David before, it is kind of a Niles type, sort of a person. And then it turns out that it’s really nothing like that. And that was great for me, a) because it was really fun to do, and, just professionally, that it is good to open that up for people and to do it in the course of, actually, one film. To say, “Okay, this is how you are used to seeing me, and this is something else — this is the other side.”

Watching it, that really struck me, what a range of performances that need to be stuck into a single character. Even towards the last half hour, you think there are really two or three types of characters, and then all of a sudden it gets even more complicated.

DHP: It is a real gift to an actor to be able to do that.

It is kind of an actor’s piece. I thought of the movie Sleuth too, as a forerunner of it.

NT: Actually, you know, Death Trap, because I always think of those two together. I mean, yeah, Sleuth, but Death Trap in particular. The idea of presenting something and it revealing itself more and revealing itself more — and more of a reveal than a twist. It is sort of like the audience finds out more, and because of that, the understanding of what happens changes. I love plays, generally, I like the theater. I mean some of my greatest experiences in entertainment have been watching a play that I’m really enjoying. I like the simplicity of the actors and text and staging. There was an aspect of that that was in the writing of this film. And there is a sort of theatrical aspect to the film.

DHP: Well, it is theatrical, in the sense that Warwick’s character in particular is a little bit larger than life. But also theatrical in that it is not a special-effects film. It is a film where you capture what happens between the characters and between the actors.

NT: There’s something interesting about a confined space as well. As an audience member, when you are watching a film that is in a confined space there are rules that are set up and you kind of sit into that, and there is a meter and a pace that develops that is different than other films where you have an open world. I guess it is something called a “closed film,” and someone like Roman Polanski is very good at doing that.

So much of the film relies on those two performances. Can you talk about getting those performances and then the experience of being involved in it?

NT: With David, I had written Warwick a certain way , nd there was a certain attitude in the script, and then it was a matter of thinking “is David the right man for this role?” And the answer for myself was, “yes.” So then at that point it is really about me trying to help David achieve what he wants to achieve with that character. At that point it is not me anymore. So my job at that point was to just be a truthful object eye, to see if the performances were true and real and working. The way that the script was written, the two characters are quite different. Warwick is more flighty and cerebral and more eccentric, or whatever. And John is more sort of salt of the earth. So, inherently, that is different. By putting two people in a room like that who are like oil and water, to some degree, a dynamic is going to occur. I think it became clear to me when we were rehearsing the film that we made the right decision. I started to see that dynamic unfold.

DHP: And that was the cool thing. Nick was able to cast two people who were suitably different, even in our acting styles. But we could work together — happily work together. We enjoyed working together. Because as much as there is conflict in the film, there is also a lot of chemistry. I think the film really hangs on that perverse chemistry between those two characters. We had a really good time — all of us, doing that.

At least one of the last movies you’ve done before this was Full Frontal, in 2002. And you’ve been doing a lot of theater in between. Are you waiting for the right kinds of projects, because that was Soderbergh; it was a very particular kind of movie. This is very theatrical, and it is a particular kind of movie. Are you sitting and waiting for those kinds of projects?

DHP: I’ve kind of gone back to the theater because that is where I came from, and I love it. There are a lot of things about film that I don’t enjoy, as an actor — part of it being that so much of it is out of your hands. But when I am drawn to a project, because of the people, because of the material, then it is very exciting for me. Because it is not like I am in the film world doing films all the time and I think, “Oh, here comes another one.” I do it because I really want to.

Filmmaking is also such a start and stop process as opposed to being on stage.

DHP: Yeah, and it wasn’t in this case, because of the way Nick chose to shoot it, and because of the way Nick had to shoot it, given the budget and the time constraints.

NT: Yeah, we had to shoot it very quickly for no money, really. So I think it was really lucky we had that rehearsal period because we were able to work it out like a play, like one whole piece. And so when we got to actually photograph it, it was like, okay we are doing this chunk now, and there was very little downtime.

DHP: Right. We all were clear on what the arc of the story was, because we worked it out in rehearsal, so if we had to shoot out of sequence or something, it didn’t matter as much. And the main thing as the actors was that we were constantly shooting because of the schedule. So it wasn’t like stop and start, and you go away for a month and come back and do two days. It was a sustained, very intense, and really creative process.