It's hard being a Barbie doll all the time.
Alice Ripley
Knowing there is a capable back-up willing to give it a try always makes you feel better.
There were eleven kids, and we all shared a bathroom. It was enough to drive us all insane.
Nothing is hanging on my walls.
I had to go off by myself to try and discover what my talent really was.
I've been committed to personal growth since I was a teenager, and I'm a believer in the idea that your thought is the only thing that matters.
Tom Kitt aside - he's in his own category with me, of course - Stephen Sondheim is one of my all-time favorite composers.
I've always looked to that play, 'Virginia Woolf,' for a cue - as far as any cue I might need as an actor for inspiration or as a writer.
I'm kind of a dork at being able to dress myself.
When the decades pass and you're working in this business, the audiences get older with you. That's the nice part about it. They're so supportive and so loving.
All day I wait for my job, which I do at night, and once I get there, I walk a tightrope, jump through hoops, and take breathtaking dives.
The road's a tough life, but I said 'yes,' because as a kid growing up in Ohio, I never had a chance to see a Tony-winning actress in a role she won the Tony for.
Facebook and Twitter and Instagram are excellent ways to keep in touch with the audience and maintain your image an actor.
My favorite thing as a performing artist is to get a pile of raw material from a writer who says, 'Will you help me make this real?' There's nothing like starting from scratch.
Everyone has some sort of connection to mental illness.
'Tommy' was my first Broadway show. Long Pause. I don't know how you can surpass the excitement or get more excited or feel more on top of the world than when you are sitting in a room singing The Who, and Pete Townshend is sitting there tapping his foot.
When you're 20 and you're in acting school and your teachers tell you that 95 percent of actors are unemployed for twenty years, you think it doesn't apply to you. But it does take twenty years to become real, because that's what you have to do to be an interesting actor.
I would say that Cynthia Nixon is somebody I admire, and Toni Collette as well. Those women - their work inspires me, whatever they do.
Teachers want to teach you theory, and that's fine, but when it comes to rock and roll, you only need three chords. There's something comforting about that.
I'm a strong follower of hydrotherapy.
George Hearn taught me that you learn that there are roles that are Tony roles and roles that are not.
I'm like a prize fighter. When I'm not on stage, every action that I take has to be focused on my next performance.
Sometimes, you find the play; sometimes, the play finds you.
George Benson's 'This Masquerade' is my favorite version of Leon Russell's blue gem.
I am always talking to students and telling them how you have to practice every day because you can't wait for someone to hire you. You need something you do for yourself, something that feeds your creative life.
I was 14. I went to see a production of 'Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,' and when they got to that final song, 'If We Only Have Love,' it was like the top of my head had blown off.
I have a soft spot for vintage movie houses covered in goo; what can I say?
You always kind of feel like you're rolling the dice as an actor.
Norm Lewis, who plays Jake in 'Side Show,' and I had a song together in 'Tommy,' and I understudied Mrs. Walker.
When it comes to your creative life and what it's going to take, you will do a disservice to everybody if you just dabble.
My Mickey Mouse ears were given to me by a dear friend. They remind me of how I need to be silly.
I love having a basement.
My mother is always the most vulnerable person in any room, and so I definitely have that part of her inside me.
'Closure' is the word used for a loss that's not acknowledged - and the habit this causes, physically and mentally, for anybody who is participating in that.
I come from the Midwest, from the suburbs - growing up hanging out at the mall and looking at the corn fields across the street. I kind of was embarrassed by it for a long time. Then I decided, 'Hey, if everyone else can embrace their homeland and where they're from, I can do the same!'
Any kind of grieving that is not allowed causes a break. In our culture, grieving in public is not encouraged, but in other cultures, it is done publicly. Some cultures have walls where people can cry. We don't have that. We have theatre where there's always the chance for you to face things within yourself.
Leisure time is when I'm not at the Booth Theater.
I grew up in Ohio. I was born in a suburb of Oakland, but I grew up in Ohio.
Making music has saved my life.
As long as a tune has the power to move me, I'm a lifelong fan.
The audience fills me back up, definitely.
I didn't see any Broadway till I was in my late twenties.
I was in the original cast of 'Sunset Boulevard.' I played Betty. But I wasn't on the cast album.
The musicals on Broadway have not necessarily been true musical theater. I'm speaking generally, of course: I saw 'Spring Awakening,' and I was completely inspired by that.
Chrissie Hynde's from Ohio, and so am I. If there's a Cleveland sound, that's what it is.
I have learned that music comes in all shapes and sizes.
Uzo Aduba over at 'Godspell' is doing an even more entertaining Donald Trump than Donald Trump's Donald Trump.
I have fallen deeply in love with songs - musical theatre songs included - over the years, and this experience has taught me to hear and honor the writer's voice in my soul.
I play the guitar every day.
'Next To Normal' is rock music. It's a rock opera. That, definitely, has a place in popular music.
