Interview: Dan Butler Talks About Taking Another Shot at Playing a Radio Host

Dan Bulter is best known for playing radio sports host Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe on the long-running sitcom Frasier, and in his latest role, he also plays a radio sports host. But this time his character is battling alcohol addiction to save his job in Spike Manton and Harry Teinowitz’s play Another Shot, now running off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center following a successful outing in Chicago in 2021.

Based on Teinowitz’s real-life struggles with sobriety, the dark comedy, directed by Jackson Gay, follows Butler’s character, Harry, as he’s forced into rehab after a newsmaking DUI arrest. With the help of four fellow recovering addicts — played by Samantha Mathis, Chiké Johnson, Gregg Mozgala, and Quentin Nguyễn-Duy — and their counselor (played by Portia), Harry embarks on a life-altering and ultimately life-saving journey.

Butler and Johnson starred in the Chicago run, but the rest of the cast is new. So is the play’s title: In Chicago it was When Harry Met Rehab. Butler says, “The things that moved me three years ago are not the things that move me now.” Here, he discusses his own journey with Another Shot, as well as what it was like returning to the recently revived Frasier and performing his acclaimed 1990s solo show.

What brought you to this play initially, and why did you want to reprise your role in New York?

During the pandemic I had done a reading of it, and it had the same effect over me that first time as it still does. Spike and Harry have written very cleverly and humanly about this story. You think it’s going to be this thing, then it changes. In Chicago, I had just had a rotator cuff surgery and thought I wasn’t going to be acting for a little while, and Jackson called me up and said, “We want you to do this part.” [Laughs] So it was recovering from that at the same time we’re doing something about recovery.

What was the reception like?

In Chicago we got a whole group of people that had never been to the theater before, from the recovery community. It was heartening, especially the Q&As afterwards. They were so grateful to have something to come to that spoke to them. We had to close early because of the Omicron-Covid thing, so I was so overjoyed when I found out we were going to bring it here. I love going into it now and discovering why it means something to me. I think projects come into your life for a reason and parts come back for a reason.

You spend a lot of time onstage listening to the other characters tell their stories. How challenging is that?

I love that. I feel very fortunate that when I first started becoming serious [about acting], the focus was on ensemble theater. It’s not about one person standing out, it’s about, how do we help everyone be their best and how do we collectively tell this story? That has been part of how I approach anything. This is so rich in that, and it’s good to ask yourself, “What new thing can I discover tonight? What new thing can I bring to life?” And just appreciate the people. I think everyone’s doing great work.

You address the audience quite a bit. What kind of connection do you forge with them?

There are times when I look out, and it happened twice the other night, where I’m saying a line about committing myself fully to recovery and I met eyes with a man in the front row and he just was silently nodding. Then at the end [when I say] the line, “I know how thin the ice is I walk on every day,” a young woman was nodding along with me. You just feel embraced. You have no idea what message is being sent out and how it’s helping them or fortifying them.

You said some things move you now that maybe didn’t a few years ago. Can you give an example or is it hard to pinpoint?

There are many things. Some I’ll probably keep to myself. But we had a close young friend that committed suicide this summer and never shared the anxiety that was going on inside. And he struggled with alcohol and felt he couldn’t get through any situation without it. So his memory is with me often. The place we live in New York City, we have paintings on the wall from a gentleman, Jeff Cahill, who was a wonderful actor and artist, and he drank himself to death. I’m so grateful I have these pieces of art — his life, his energy is in these paintings.

Your Frasier character, Bulldog, was quite the womanizer in his day. How did you feel about playing him again in the Paramount+ revival?

It was a lot of fun and very rich. I had just done a production of Tuesdays With Morrie in Dublin earlier this year and I discovered Frasier is really popular over there, multi-generationally. During the pandemic the younger generation just started watching the old program. They would ask me questions: “Were you disappointed you weren’t on the reboot?” And I would answer, “I never expected to be, but if I went back I would be very interested in how this character has fared with the #MeToo movement. Did he have any 180-degree turn?” I got back and then got this offer to do it and it was a great reunion.

You were among the first wave of gay actors to come out publicly in the 1990s when you did your solo show The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me. Did you think you were taking a risk at the time, or did you have the sense that things were changing?

I really did not give that any thought. What scared me more was doing a one-man show. I remember having invited friends out to the first version of it and waiting for it to start, and I suddenly sort of gasped and thought, What if this means absolutely nothing to anyone but me? I love that sort of terror-joy that I hadn’t felt since high school. I’d been happy with work and proud of it, but I never wanted to lose that quality again — that sort of shimmer of both those things alive alongside each other.