Kelsey Grammer talks reprisal of Captain Hook in Broadway's 'Finding Neverland'

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Actor Kelsey Grammer is returning to the stage, reprising his role as Captain Hook in the Broadway musical "Finding Neverland."

He gets a big laugh every time he makes a passing reference to his old TV series "Cheers" on stage, and it serves as a reminder of how famous he became on the small screen and in movies. But the theater is where he started after attending the famed Juilliard School in New York City.

Great stars have the power to command our attention and make a part really sing, which is why "Finding Neverland" benefits from his return.

"There's a certain something that happens when Kelsey is here," actress Laura Michelle Kelly said. "There's a certain electricity, so I'm really happy that he's here."

Grammer is just shy of 61 years old, and there is calm about him he never had during years as Dr. Frasier Crane, when multiple marriages and drug abuse complicated his amazing success.

"I like to refer to my 40s as having gone through a powerful healing," he said. "And now I've come out to the other side of all that stuff, and I'm just ecstatic about being here."

Grammer plays two parts, as a playwright's producer and a figment of J.M. Barrie's imagination known as Captain Hook.

"Hook becomes this inner voice of James Barrie's," he said. "Who says 'you're gonna either fade away or dare to be the best you've ever been.'"

Grammer left the musical to spend the summer with his young children -- a son who is just a year old and a daughter who is 3. In terms of marriage, his fourth time has proven to be the charm.

"I'm surrounded by love in a way that I have never been before," he said.

And he's found there is no drug better than pure applause.

"Nothing," he said. "It is the greatest high."

Kelly says Grammer brings out something new in every single show, as well as the child in every adult. He will be appearing in "Finding Neverland" for another couple of weeks before he moves on to his next project.