The many stages of Niles Crane

Long before he won four Emmys for "Frasier" and a Tony for "Curtains," actor David Hyde Pierce drew strength from projects that bombed.

Fresh out of Yale, where he double-majored in English and theater, he made his Broadway debut in 1982 in the small part of a waiter in Christopher Durang's "Beyond Therapy." The show, which starred John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and Peter Michael Goetz, opened to terrible reviews and closed in two weeks.

The experience gave him clarity, even as he juggled temporary jobs selling neckties at Bloomingdales and working in a law firm.

"It taught me that I was in the right profession because I loved every second of it," he said last week by phone from his New York home before flying to the Twin Cities for an onstage conversation Sunday with the Guthrie Theater's Joe Dowling.

"Technically speaking, it was a flop. If I loved every second of it and it was a flop, I presumed it would be even more fun as a success. It looked like I was hanging out with the right folks."

A decade later, Pierce was on TV in "The Powers That Be," playing a congressman in the Norman Lear pilot on NBC. The show ran for two half-seasons before it was canceled.

"I remember being crushed by that," he said. "I didn't realize that the same rules applied in television as in theater. Don't get your hopes up. Live for the moment. Take what you have on that day because they can easily take it away from you."

"I made two vows that day," he said. "One, that I'd never do another sitcom. And two, if I ever worked on television again, it wouldn't be on NBC. [He chuckled.] Then along came 'Frasier.'"

Yes, "Frasier." For 11 seasons, Pierce played snooty Niles Crane, Frasier's younger brother, on the NBC juggernaut, now in syndication. That character, constructed from tangents, is an effete intellectual. It has brought him renown and many accolades. The role also has allowed him to lavish attention on his first love: the stage.

"Maybe it's because it's the first thing I came to," he said. "But I think it's more than that. Having had a chance to do television for many years in as good a way as an actor could...I don't feel a strong draw to go back. ...Film is something where you do a whole lot of work ahead of time. You let it go and they catch it and you're done. ...It goes to an editor."

"In theater, the deepening work happens between you and your pals onstage who create it every night, give it life with the same words," he said.

Pierce, who grew up on Long Island, intended to become a concert pianist. But he realized in college that he did not have the temperament for it.

He saw theater as an option after a compliment from a theater professor at Yale, Bart Teusch, on his performance in a drama major's senior project, "A Man for All Seasons."

He landed at the Guthrie in 1983 in a production of "The Seagull," an experience he called "formative."

"The kinds of plays I was in, the kinds I saw, the company, seriousness of purpose, the commitment of the audience," he said, rattling off attributes of the theater. "I can say the Guthrie was one of the most important training grounds for me."

Plus, the theater paid well, especially to an actor struggling in New York.

"We made $500 a week," he said. "We thought we were just rolling in it."

"Rehearsing two shows during the day and performing a third at night -- that was just heaven," he said.

Pierce is happy to be back onstage in New York and London, which has been the majority of his work since "Frasier" ended six years ago. Now that he is doing theater, he recalls a dressing-room conversation at a production of "Hamlet" in Central Park in the 1980s, directed by then-Guthrie artistic director Liviu Ciulei.

"We were complaining about these damned television actors coming into New York and getting parts," he said. Now, he is one of them.

"'Frasier' was so unique," he continued. "It was so theatrically written...written like a play each week. And it was mostly theater actors doing it. Me, Kelsey [Grammer], John Mahoney. It was never a show I had to apologize for to my theater friends. ... I've been able to negotiate commercial success because I had a classy commercial success."

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390