David Hyde Pierce
Actor & Activist

Master of Ceremonies

DAVID HYDE PIERCE  is an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor and director who returns to Broadway this April in Pirates! The Penzance Musical, a reimagined version of the Gilbert & Sullivan classic. He most recently appeared on the New York stage in Stephen Sondheim’s final musical, Here We Are. His Broadway acting credits include Hello, Dolly! (Tony nomination), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Tony nomination), La Bête, Curtains (Tony Award), Spamalot, The Heidi Chronicles and Beyond Therapy. Along with originating numerous roles Off-Broadway, he has appeared in productions of Shakespeare, Shaw, Chekov, Moliere and Philip Barry at the Guthrie, Goodman, and Long Wharf theaters. He directed Brian Hargrove and Barbara Anselmi’s musical It Shoulda Been You on Broadway, Vanya and Sonia at Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum, David Lindsay-Abaire’s Ripcord at the Manhattan Theater Club, and a gangster-themed Importance of Being Earnest at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

His film credits include Bright Lights, Big City, Crossing Delancey, Little Man Tate, Sleepless in Seattle, Wolf, Nixon, Isn't She Great, Wet Hot American Summer, Down With Love, A Bug's Life, Osmosis Jones, Treasure Planet, and The Perfect Host. Television roles include playing a suicidal congressman on Norman Lear's political satire "The Powers That Be," 11 seasons as Dr. Niles Crane on "Frasier” (Emmy, SAG Awards), and most recently Julia Child’s devoted husband Paul on “Julia” for HBO Max.