We learn the most from listening, and I don't just mean with our ears.

My grandparents, Jim and Pat Moore, were an incredible couple. They drove me to the community theater, where I did plays as a kid.

I think all my favorite directors have acted. They understand how an actor thinks.

Helping to open up the conversation about inclusion and diversity in casting has been a dream come true.

A lot of times, comedy writers will go for the gay joke, and I've been vocal about saying, 'Go for the smart joke.'

I remember sitting at home in West Texas listening to my 'Songs for a New World' CD over and over.

At the end of the day, we need to realize that segregation is not the human condition at its best. Which isn't to say we need to all be the same. It simply means we need to embrace each other's differences to help tell our stories together.

I often think about what love can inspire in the world, not just in the eyes of the object of your affection.

I found that the same things I loved about performing were the things I liked about directing and creating a piece - striking a chord that was in tune with the world and was reflecting back what I saw, just from a different angle.

I've played gay, and I've played straight... I'm proud to be a gay man myself, and I'm thrilled to get the opportunity to play a variety of different gay men.

As someone who lives with an animal, I think it's important to learn how to responsibly care for souls who don't have their own voice. They can't advocate for themselves.

At its core, 'Spring Awakening' is about the perils of miscommunication and what happens when people are denied a voice.

I really enjoy 'The Beauty Is' from 'Light in the Piazza.'

Kelli O'Hara is incredible.

Unless we build theater and performing arts, then we're not going to be creating future patrons. We need to make it accessible.

I created my family with the people I met in the theater and escaped in the stories I told and the characters I got a chance to play. It's just always felt like home.

Say you have a young black kid, and you come to see a Sondheim show. You love the material, but you look on stage, and you don't see anyone who looks like you. That puts a barrier between the audience and what they're trying to absorb.

I want to create an environment that actors can be really free in.

Magic in plays and musicals, I think, is more often created because of the work of an incredible company rather than a single component.

There is no distinction, no echelon of actors within a company. A company is only as strong as its weakest link.

I had taken a directing class in high school. Looking back on it now, I think it was all heading that way.

My dream would be to have 50 people in a show with each person from a different country.

I tend to ask more questions than I should as an actor.

It's my goal to help actors achieve their best work, and I think I speak the same language as actors, so I understand how they do it, and I just love being able to create the playground in which they build their beautiful sandcastle.

The most exciting thing I've seen is directors not only being open to actors coming in the room with different abilities but actively looking at ways that the story can be enlarged with disabled actors.

I was lucky enough to make my Broadway debut in 'Big River.'

You can't ever go back; life is incredibly short and fragile.

If you've never heard a piece of Mozart, then Mozart could sound scary or confusing, so it's all about learning.

When you step off a plane into a place like Haiti, you're just surrounded by overwhelming stimulus: the people selling you things, asking you to engage.

So many gay men are mothers to so many young people, me included. I've had gay men who were more mother to me than my own mother ever was.