Gregory Wooddell and Alyssa Wilmoth Keegan. Photo: Cheyenne Michaels

If you find yourself binging on the first season of 30 Rock anytime soon, don’t be surprised if you see Gregory Wooddell. The established theater actor, set to take on the iconic role of Brick in this week’s new Round House Theatre production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, makes a guest appearance in the NBC comedy’s fifteenth episode, “Hard Ball,” which also features cameos from Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson. Blink and you’ll miss Wooddell. In fact, he sometimes forgets he did it.

“The biggest kick that I get, honestly, is kind of forgetting that I did it and getting a text or an email or a Facebook message saying, ‘Oh my god, I just saw you on 30 Rock!’” Wooddell says.

Wooddell has made a handful of TV appearances on shows including Third Watch, Person of Interest, and The Good Wife. He took the gigs not only for the paychecks, but because he didn’t want to be artistically complacent.

“I think it would be easy to say, theater’s my home, I feel comfortable in that and I feel safe and I know what I’m doing so I don’t need to do TV and film,” Wooddell says. “I wanted to see what it was about, because it was out of my comfort zone, and to challenge myself.”

His list of theater credits is much longer, with appearances in Broadway’s The Lyons and Cymbeline and more than a dozen regional Shakespeare productions. Wooddell says the imbalance is not a coincidence.

“On a lot of shows, you show up on set, you’re in your trailer, you’re called to set when it’s ready to do your scenes. A lot of the times you haven’t met who you’re working with before you start shooting. You shoot, and when they feel like they’ve got what they need, you’re done, you’re released,” Wooddell says. “There’s little time to meet and get to know who you’re working with.”

By contrast, theater gives Wooddell the opportunity to stretch his creative muscles in the company of fellow artists who become his friends and inspirations over a period of several months, or even longer. “It’s a sense of community and ensemble that I really appreciate,” Wooddell says.

TV acting requires a different set of skills than acting in front of a live audience, but the rewards from one experience can bleed over into the other. In an auditorium, an actor is tasked with filling the space, playing to every corner of a crowded space. On TV, excess is excised.

“Acting in front of a camera is a really good way to learn simplicity in the craft, really learn how to not do anything extra,” Wooddell says. “You just communicate what you need to communicate, as people do.”

Though he’s had a taste of what it’s like to be on a popular network TV show, Wooddell can’t see himself ever heading to TV full time. Even if he got a recurring role on a show, he’d strive to carve out time in his schedule to return to the stage.

Wooddell can’t resist the rush he gets from developing a character over a long period of time, a task he’s in the midst of wrestling with on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. This performance marks Wooddell’s first foray into Tennessee Williams, whose distinct dialogue rhythms often prove challenging for even the most experienced actors.

Brick, the son of a wealthy cotton tycoon struggling with marital woes and internal conflicts in addition to a troubling diagnosis for his ailing father, strikes Wooddell as different even from the other characters in this play: more inwardly troubled, quietly desperate but struggling to express his strife.

Beyond that, Wooddell won’t say much about what Williams devotees can expect from his take on Brick. He prefers to let audiences draw their own conclusions and start their own conversations after seeing the show. That’s partially because Wooddell believes character development doesn’t stop at opening night, or even in the first few shows. The character transforms, and Wooddell with him, each time he appears.

“Part of the joy in theater for me is with any character in any play I’m doing, I’m continuing to find things, I’m continuing to learn as I go along every night, finding new things, new experiences, new discoveries every night. That keeps it fresh and alive for me. Which I would think would keep it fresh and alive for the audience.”

Rather than tell you what to look for, Wooddell hopes viewers will seize upon what captures them specifically.

“The whole point of art is to have an experience and your own thoughts and feelings that you just experienced, and that you can have an entire theater full of people and everyone will come out with different thoughts and feelings and opinions, that’s a wonderful thing.”

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens March 30* and runs at the Round House Theatre through April 24. Tickets are available online.

*Date has been corrected