Death Becomes Her's Christopher Sieber on Being 'The Beige Person in Between the Sparkles'

Christopher Sieber plays "surgeon to the stars" Ernest Menville in the high-camp hit Death Becomes Her on Broadway alongside Jennifer Simard and Betsy Wolfe. The Minnesota-born actor has been steadily working for the past few decades, and his reputation precedes him. Speaking to Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek, the two-time Tony nominee delves into what makes him one of the theater industry’s most reliable players: “I say yes a lot. I have a yes problem. It does get me in trouble, because I'm exhausted most of the time. But I love doing it. I love being part of it. And so I will continue.”

Turning 57 in February, Sieber says, "Simard calls me Treeber, because I'm the sturdy guy that was always like, 'Okay, let's just deal with this.'" Sieber previously worked with Simard in the 2021 revival of Company. In Death Becomes Her, the two of them shared the stage with Megan Hilty, who recently wrapped up her Tony-nominated run as Madeline Ashton. Of his original leading ladies, Sieber says, “They're incredible, both of them. During rehearsals, I just realized, 'Oh, I think it's best if I just get out of their way.' And that's what I did the entire rehearsal. But it actually worked for the part, because Ernest is in their way. Ernest is just the beige person in between the sparkles.”

Wolfe recently took over for Hilty as Ernest’s youth-chasing, axe-wielding actress of a wife. “She plays the part completely different, so the energy she brought to the show is just incredible,” says Sieber. “The audiences immediately fell in love with her and so did we. She just slipped right in and it wasn't a problem. She was just there, like she's been doing it for years.”

Sieber has been involved with Death Becomes Her since its inception, in part due to his longstanding friendship with the show’s librettist Marco Pennette. “He's been a friend since back when I was doing a sitcom with the Olsen twins in 1997. He had a show called Caroline in the City. He's written a lot of television. For 30 some years, he kept on saying, ‘Hey, I'm going to put you in one of my shows. I'm going to put you in one of my sitcoms.' I was like, ‘Great, great.’ Never happened.”

A television project may have not materialized, but the two of them finally collaborated when Pennette started drafting a stage adaptation of the 1992 cult classic film. “He asked me, ‘Hey, I wrote a Broadway show. Would you like to read it? Can you tell me what you think?’ I read it and I said, ‘Marco, this is amazing!’ and he said, 'Do you want to maybe think about doing it?'" Recalling his first impressions of the script, Sieber notes, “When you laugh on page one or two of a script, you know you're in for good stuff. And that's what happened here. It sets the tone immediately and you know where you're headed.”

Even a veteran like Sieber—whose stacked résumé includes 13 Broadway productions—has the occasional crisis of confidence, “During the creation [process], I said, ‘There's going to be a day in about two weeks where you're going to feel extremely untalented, and you may cry.’ The same thing will go for me. There will be a day or two where you think, 'They got the wrong guy. I should probably quit,' and I'll go home and cry and close the door and eat a pint of ice cream. Broadway people know this,” Sieber continues. "When we go into a Broadway show, we know there are going to be moments where it's just going to be like, ‘Oh my god, this is never going to happen, this is never going to happen.’ And it always does.”

Having found himself in “a very big glamorous Broadway show” at this stage of his career, Sieber reflects on his beginnings. “When I first moved to New York City in 1988, everyone went to 890 Broadway. It was Michael Bennett's building and every floor had a Broadway show rehearsing or auditioning and it was amazing. You would sit in the hallway for an audition and down the hallway would come walking Tommy Tune or Chita Rivera or even Gwen Verdon. I'm one of those people now. I walk down the hallway and people are like, ‘It's Christopher Sieber.' It took some realization where you're like, 'Oh my god, I'm that person now.’ All I can do is just be kind. It's like, 'Keep going, you're going to do great. You're going to do great things.'"

Watch the full interview below!

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