A supporting player of American stage, TV, and film who has specialized in playing neurotic and priggish men of privilege, Pierce made his professional debut on Broadway in Christopher Durang's "Beyond Therapy" (1982) before working off-Broadway and in regional theater. Onstage, billed as David Pierce, the Yale graduate distinguished himself as Laertes to Kevin Kline's "Hamlet" (1986), toured the Soviet Union and Japan in "The Cherry Orchard" (1988-89) and won plaudits for his turn as a gay pediatrician opposite Christine Lahti in Wendy Wasserstein's award-winning "The Heidi Chronicles"