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 les 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