With ‘Re-Animator’ at Smith Center, George Wendt is a member of the grateful dead

By John Katsilometes

Published Friday, Dec. 5, 2014 | 1:50 p.m.

Updated Friday, Dec. 5, 2014 | 4:15 p.m.

George Wendt was introduced to TV audiences as if he just happened to saunter into a neighborhood tavern.

Actually, that is exactly how it happened.

The trajectory of Wendt’s career changed the moment Wendt appeared onstage in the hit series “Cheers,” eliciting the familiar call-out, “Norm!” He was a central character in that series throughout its 11-year run, developing one of the most beloved characters ever on TV.

The result, of course, is you inhabit such a character long after the series has ended. Over the course of TV history, cast members of “M*A*S*H,” “Taxi” and “Seinfeld,” among myriad other famed series, have forever been identified by the characters they made famous.

Wendt accepts such a fate.

“You know, I don’t stress about that because it’s so much better than the other way around, if I never really landed in the public consciousness with anything,” Wendt says in a recent phone interview as he preps for his role in the play “Re-Animator: The Musical,” which will run from Jan. 6-18 at Troesh Studio Theater at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts.

Show times are 8 p.m., with 2:30 matinees added. Jan. 10-11 and 17-18. Tickets start at $44 and are available by calling (702) 749-2000 or at the Smith Center website smithcenter.com.

Wendt continues to talk of what it has been like to portray one of TV’s most famous tavern dwellers.

“It’s never negative for me. To sort of complain about perfect strangers coming up and saying hello and how much they enjoyed your work ... may take me by surprise now and then. But if you look at it with any sense, it’s very flattering,” he says.

The same can be said for Wendt’s long-famous role as one of the burly, brat-wolfing Chicago Bears fans from the “Superfans” skit (you know, “Da Bears!”) that premiered more than 20 years ago on “Saturday Night Live.”

“The way I look at it is, it’s the result of a job well done,” he says, chuckling. “It’s a sign of that. But I’m far beyond that period of my life.”

Wendt hits Las Vegas just after the New Year to co-star in a musical that has been universally applauded as a dark comedy along the lines of “Little Shop of Horrors,” though probably with a darker tinge than even that musical.

The story is of the medical student Herbert West, who discovers a serum that can return the dead to life. But this glowing, green liquid is fraught with complications resulting in “hideous and ghastly consequences,” as the show’s own official synopsis reads. The show is known to spray that green serum around the stage and into the audience. In L.A., leaving with a little green blood is considered a badge of honor. Nonetheless, plastic ponchos will be given to those seated in the first couple of rows.

“Even though it’s a silly comedy with blood drenching the audience, it’s still a great show,” Wendt promises, adding that it is one of just a handful of productions to earn seven five-star reviews in the United Kingdom. The show was thus nominated for Best of Fest in the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. It has received six L.A. Weekly film awards, including Musical of the Year in 2012.

The current musical is an adaptation of the 1980s cult film “H.P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator,” and the source material is Lovecraft’s 1922 short story “Herbert West — Reanimator.”

Owning a deep theater and comedy background — he is an alum of the Second City comedy troupe based in Chicago — Wendt portrays Dean Halsey, who runs the medical school. Wendt gets to portray a zombie through much of the production.

How does one take on the role of a zombie?

“First, you get killed onstage. You get your fingers bitten off, and you get beaten to death by another zombie,” Wendt explains. “Then you’re a dead guy, and you get reanimated by Herbert West. Voila! You’re a zombie.”

Wendt likens the performance as a return to his days in Second City, though he still occasionally performs in charity events and occasional “proper” shows with members of the comedy ensemble.

He attended an early performance of “Second City” at Flamingo Las Vegas, which featured a rising comedy writer and performer (this is the big “reveal” in Wendt’s story).

“My nephew was in the cast — Jason Sudeikis — and his then-wife, Kay Cannon, was also in the cast,” Wendt says. “That was great. I’ve always liked the feel of Second City. Of course, Jason was just great and went off to ‘Saturday Night Live’ from there.”

Wendt’s wife is comic actress Bernadette Birkett, who has appeared in “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and “St. Elmo’s Fire.” She also was the voice of Norm’s wife, Vera, who was never seen during the run of “Cheers.”

Wendt recalls his first visit to Las Vegas many years ago was because Bernadette was appearing on a Rodney Dangerfield cable-TV special.

The “Re-Animator” creative lineup is familiar to Wendt. He joined the cast in 2012 for its run at the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles.

“It was a bunch of old friends. The director, Stuart Gordon, is an old pal from my Chicago theater days when he was the director of the Organic Theater Company. Then he started doing movies in Hollywood right at about the same time I moved out to L.A. to look for film and TV work. ... I’ve done two or three movies with Stuart,” Wendt says. “And the guy who does the music and lyrics is Mark Nutter, who I’ve worked with, sheesh ... since the mid-1970s. He’s just great. I actually get jealous if he’s working on something and I’m not part of it.”

At age 66, Wendt refers to himself as “the elderstatesman” and even “the geezer” these days. “This cast is just so great, so funny, and this show has been a phenomenon in L.A. and everywhere it’s played,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of horrific moments, but it’s really a wicked black comedy.”

He says the days of fans shouting “Norm!” at him are ebbing with each passing year.

“You’d think it would be every day, but days and days go by when that does not happen,” he says. “But if I were to just wander around one of the casinos in Las Vegas, I would imagine I would get lots of people saying hello or yelling ‘Norm!’ or something. But the show has been off the air for 20, 25 years or whatever it’s been. My little brother probably looks more like Norm than I do.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.