Alan Tudyk

Cutup Alan Tudyk tones it down for Prelude to a Kiss.

SERIOUSLY FOLKS Tudyk flexes different acting muscles.

For a performer who built his career on playing broad comedic characters, Alan Tudyk seems like an odd choice for the role of Peter, the lovesick loner at the center of Prelude to a Kiss, currently being revived by the Roundabout Theatre Company. Known for his eccentric turns both onscreen (a flamboyant German disco-dancing druggie in 28 Days, a sports-loving pirate in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) and onstage (a very gay Sir Lancelot in Spamalot, the more neurotic half of the world’s first queer couple in The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told), Tudyk rarely gets to play it straight, in either sense of the word. Even though the 35-year-old character actor admits that he dropped out of the Juilliard acting program because “they just didn’t do comedy,” the funnyman is happy to show that he does indeed have a serious side.

“I was sick of people saying, ‘Get me that pirate on the phone!’ ” Tudyk jokes about his high-profile Dodgeball role. “It was the same thing after I did 28 Days. I became the go-to gay actor who wasn’t gay. And I was like, ‘I just did that. I don’t want to do that again.’ I try to avoid stereotyping at all costs. So I saw Prelude as an excellent opportunity.”

In Craig Lucas’s Tony-nominated 1990 romantic dramedy, Tudyk’s character, Peter, meets and marries Rita (Annie Parisse), then comes to realize that she has somehow switched souls with an ailing elderly stranger (John Mahoney). The quirky and harrowing situation forces him to question his heart and his sanity. Although Rita, acting like an old man trapped in a young woman’s body, gets the most laughs, Tudyk doesn’t mind being her foil. “Extraordinary, magical things happen in this play,” he says. “Peter is the eyes of the audience; he’s the rational one dealing with all these intense emotions. His happiness is gone, and he’s got to chase it to try to find it again. As the straight man, I get to do a lot of wonderful, desperate stuff.”

Prelude also allows the handsome performer to play a romantic lead, something he rarely gets to do. Luckily he fares better in that department offstage: He was formerly linked to his frequent costar, Amy Sedaris (although he refuses to confirm or deny the rumor), and he’s currently living with an unnamed dancer girlfriend. In a comic coincidence, their relationship has mirrored Peter and Rita’s predicament. “My girlfriend actually just went through surgery and I’m taking care of her,” Tudyk says. “She’s slow and on crutches, so it’s like being with an older person who’s infirm. Of course, she doesn’t look like an old man, which is great.”