Video: David Hyde Pierce on the New Orleans-Flavored PIRATES! THE PENZANCE MUSICAL- 'It Really Works!'

Every once in a while, I think about the fact that I'm getting to do this great role and this great show on Broadway with the dearest, most creative and wonderful people I know, and it's like, I kind of can't believe it

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. Up next for Roundabout Theater Company is Rameen Karam Lou, Jinks Vonsune, and David High Pierce, who lead the crew in Pirates, the Penzance musical, the new jazzy New Orleans reimagining of the Pirates of Penzance

and I caught up with a company here at the West Bank Cafe. It's really special, you know

This take is New Orleans inspired. It's set at the turn of the century. It's the beginning of jazz music

It's full of flavor. It's full of life. And I'm hoping to choreograph the hell out of it

Being in the rehearsal room with this incredible group with performers, what that's been like

Yeah, it's great being with this group. They're really special. I mean, David Hyde Pierce, Rameen, Jinks, Nicholas, Sammy, Preston

They're just all thoroughbreds. They're great of what they do. They sing beautifully

They act beautifully. They're funny. They're intelligent. And they dance. Get ready

This has been in the works for like seven years. And I was a Scott Ellis, our director, who I did curtains with, asked me to play the major general in the reading

And at the time, it was just this experimental idea. We're thinking of maybe trying to flavor it with New Orleans for historical reasons

And then each successive iteration, it got more and more fulfilled and more and more

And it just the further they went in that direction the further it was like oh this is becoming kind of its own organism and it really works This new adaptation this revival is going to have everything you love about Pirates of Pinsance

And then say you are completely new to it, it's very welcoming to new audience members

And that's the work I like to do, where whoever you are, you can do

get something from it. You can be in love with this text or you can be completely

cold to it and we're going to give you a show that means

something to you, you know? There's a lot of funny people in this room. I'm actually

the most quiet I'm finding. I'm usually quiet in rehearsals but now I'm just being entertained every day

and I was like, okay, now I've got to bring my offerings. It's a great

group, is a great group and super talented and from the dancing to the singing and

David Hyde Pierce. It's a school day every day. That's one of the reasons I took

this job. I'm like, I just want to be in the room with David Hypeirce every day. Jinks monsoon, phenomenal

Oh my gosh. The laughs that we have, it's been so fun. It's been so insane

We're all, all the principals, especially, we're definitely being pushed to our limits in terms of, like, dancing and like the things we have to figure out

with sword fighting and whatnot. So it's been really awesome to like all like start together and like figure it out together

Just being in the rehearsal room. with this group. How do you all, like, not stop laughing? Talk about that

I mean David Hyde Pierce Jinks Monson the laughs are endless and constant And it also just keeps it loose in the room And I learning so much from them every day And so it just a pleasure And everyone such a great person a hard worker a team player Like this is a big musical And so we a team And it feels so great in that way

Favorite pinch me moment, like in the rehearsal room. Like, you're sitting there one day, you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this

I think once we all started singing together at the finale and then to look around and see, you know, it's such a beautiful message to at the end of the story, at the end of the show that we're going to share with you all on about how we're all from someplace else and how we all as actors are from someplace else and to come together and collaborate and to build this show together and to look around the room and see all these different people from different parts of the world, walks of life. It's just, it's, I'm just honored to be a part of

It must be so exciting because some people know pirates and some people don't know pirates, but you're going to introduce a whole new audience

to the Pirates of Penzance. And for me, that's what's going to be fun

watching young kids that have no clue what the original was, and they'll

be like, well, oh, wow, that's kind of cool. So they won't know that I've changed a few chords here, even in some of the original

things. They'll say, oh, that was nice. It was a beautiful song, you know, and then this

upbeat New Orleans feel will come in that wasn't there before. So I think it's going to be

I'm curious to see the reactions because it's been fun in the studio

and the gala was fun, but I want to see audiences react to something that they've never seen before

So I'm looking forward to that. What's making this so special for you

Well it a favorite work of mine pirates but being done in a way that not only have I never heard it that way and no one ever heard it this way We took the idea that we knew that factually Gilbert and Sullivan were touring the East Coast of America presenting their new musical pirates in America before they ever did it in England

And then we found that there was a production in New Orleans

And we thought, well, let's assume that that's them. And they went there and Sullivan heard the beginnings of ragtime, jazz, the blues, all the dance styles and some of the exotic music from the Caribbean and said, my English ears have never heard anything like this

Let us bring this New Orleans sound into our score. And let's let the performers be from the area and have their way with the tunes

and Gilbert said, forget that. They're real pirates in New Orleans, not the makeup ones we had

These are real. Let's make it part of that history. And it's turned into this version of pirates that I've never seen, and it's just wild

Wild. And it still remains a wonderful comedy. But we've also been able to bring in a couple of, I think, important points for our country at this time

and the fact that everyone in the story is some form of an immigrant from somewhere else

and they're all here in New Orleans, and they realize what unites us is that we're all from someplace else

And it's, yeah, well, I'm very happy with that