Three's Company for David Furr in Love-Triangle Comedy Accent on Youth
Age: 37
Hometown: Greensboro, North Carolina
Currently: Starring as Dickie Reynolds, a Broadway actor who woos his co-star (Mary Catherine Garrison), not realizing she’s already involved with their famous playwright (David Hyde Pierce), in the Broadway revival of Accent on Youth.
Accent on Music: The Furr household was not an artistic hub (Dad was an industrial organization psychologist; Mom was a librarian), but early on, it was obvious their boy would mark his own path. “When I was really young, my parents saw me tapping my fingers on tables whenever I heard a piano playing,” Furr recalls. “So they got us a piano, and when I was six, I started taking lessons. Then I took guitar and started accumulating other instruments.” His run-ins with theater-folk were minimal, to say the least. “One time, my mom volunteered at the community theater to help paint sets and run the spotlight for The King and I. In high school, I always thought it’d be fun to try out for a show. But I chickened out.”
The Old College Try: Enrolling in Appalachian State University, located in the mountains off the Blue Ridge Parkway, Furr started composing music for campus productions. “A lot of the shows were Southern-oriented, so I could pull out dulcimers, mandolins and other Appalachian instruments,” he remembers. Along the way, he realized that he’d like to try performing, which stirred up his nerves again before a crucial audition. “It was down to me and someone else for this part, and I was afraid I couldn’t learn the lines,” he says. “So I ended up as the stage manager, which was great because I’d pretty much absorbed the whole show by the time it opened. That made me less nervous about my own abilities.”
New York, New York: After college, Furr worked regularly with the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival before taking the next obvious step—a move to New York—in 1999. He remained on the go, however, averaging eight months a year in regional theater productions. When Furr was in town, he worked as a temp at Symphony Space and parlayed his fledgling skills as a photographer into freelance jobs. “Obviously, I know a bunch of actors,” he says, “and once they saw my stuff, they were like, ‘Can you do some headshots?’ Then agents started sending people to me. I did a lot of backstage and rehearsal shots, and some portraits around town. It’s nice to do something creative that you can hang on the wall, unlike acting or music.”
Life with George and Martha: In 2004, Furr nabbed ensemble roles in two Broadway productions, King Lear and The Rivals, before being tapped to understudy David Harbour as Nick in the hit 2005 revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? When Harbour had to leave the show early, Furr spent the the final weeks of the Broadway run (and later the five-city tour) fighting, smoking and drinking onstage with Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner. “Actually, not Bill,” he says. “Bill decided that George didn’t get drunk. George just nursed one drink throughout the whole night.” Working with Irwin was especially meaningful, since Furr had bought a ukulele after seeing the Tony winner’s signature performance piece The Regard of Flight way back when. “He and I played together a lot, and when the tour ended, he gave me one of his. He just thought I needed a better ukulele.” Speaking of gifts, Furr gave one to his otherco-star: a vaudevillian tune he wrote called “Kathleen,” about a movie star on Broadway. Did Ms. Turner blush when she heard it? “I don’t think she blushed, but I think she appreciated it.”
Romantic Rival: In 2007, Furr landed a small role in Lincoln Center Theater’s Cymbeline, a production as elaborate as Virginia Woolf was spare. “It was a cast of around 27, with huge, moving set pieces and heavy costumes,” he says. “I love doing Shakespeare, but I also like it when you have a sofa and a glass you can pick up. It’s just a few of you and people aren’t orating.” That’s essentially the case in Accent on Youth, a comedy about an aging playwright (David Hyde Pierce) who strikes up a discreet romance with his young secretary, only to find her courted by Furr’s character, a dashing actor. “I love watching him work,” Furr says of Pierce. “He’s very careful and precise, always going back and working through things. And he does it in a spirit of fun and play. He’s quick to make fun of himself.” Pierce is a musician-turned-actor himself, having been schooled as a classical pianist. “He’d play classical and Gershwin stuff during rehearsal breaks,” Furr says, adding that the two haven’t tried a duet. “I’m not sure how that would go,” he says with a laugh. “My sight-reading skills are a bit gone. I’m more of a Ray Charles, play-by-ear kind of guy.”
