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Knowing there is a capable back-up willing to give it a try always makes you feel better.
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'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.
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Writing is the place where I can do it all and get away with it. You can't do that in the theatre.
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Norm Lewis, who plays Jake in 'Side Show,' and I had a song together in 'Tommy,' and I understudied Mrs. Walker.
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Parents are destined to sin against their kids; it's inevitable. As is narcissism and the human condition. Everyone has their ego and their ambitions. Life happens in between.
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I've always been inspired by Patti LuPone.
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As long as a tune has the power to move me, I'm a lifelong fan.
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Springsteen's 'Thunder Road' and Carole King's 'It's Too Late' are examples of why I am a singer/songwriter. I practice these songs every day. The melodies are timeless in the rock world, the lyrics are words that I need to say, and they need to be heard again.
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It's heartbreaking to see theater people be forced to accept the business side of show business.
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I'm drawn to raw material and raw emotions.
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I didn't see any Broadway till I was in my late twenties.
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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.
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Tom Kitt aside - he's in his own category with me, of course - Stephen Sondheim is one of my all-time favorite composers.
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You always kind of feel like you're rolling the dice as an actor.
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When everything kind of hit the fan, my dad married Jo Anne, and suddenly there were five kids from the Ripleys and five kids from the Doughertys. Then my dad and Joanne had a baby. I usually have to make a diagram.
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When I did 'Rocky Horror,' I didn't want to meet the audience afterward, because they'd been having a good time yelling names at me all night, and I didn't really want to tell them that I didn't have such a good time being yelled at all night.
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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.
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Facebook and Twitter and Instagram are excellent ways to keep in touch with the audience and maintain your image an actor.
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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.
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A likable character isn't one who does nothing wrong.
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I did grow up in a small town. I grew up in a lot of different places. But I consider my home to be Cleveland.
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Sometimes a job comes to you, and you didn't ask for it. Your work in the past hires you, and that's nice.
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If there were a song from 'West Side Story' that I would do, it would be 'Something's Coming,' but in a sense that put it in the right key for me and then do that one.
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You've got to chop back the performance like a rose bush. That's when it's beautiful.