When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor in classics like Shaw and Shakespeare and Chekov and Ibsen.

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.

Sometimes, you find the play; sometimes, the play finds you.

I've always been drawn to raw material.

I was in the original cast of 'Sunset Boulevard.' I played Betty. But I wasn't on the cast album.

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.

I think I enjoy Sondheim so much because of the lyrics. The lyrics, the cornucopia of options.

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.

Tom Kitt aside - he's in his own category with me, of course - Stephen Sondheim is one of my all-time favorite composers.

I don't really talk about 'Next to Normal' that much anymore.

Norm Lewis, who plays Jake in 'Side Show,' and I had a song together in 'Tommy,' and I understudied Mrs. Walker.

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.

I didn't see any Broadway till I was in my late twenties.

I grew up in Ohio. I was born in a suburb of Oakland, but I grew up in Ohio.

Leisure time is when I'm not at the Booth Theater.

I don't honestly have the time or energy to support anybody else's cause but my own, which is self-expression. So I guess, if I had a cause, it would be education.

You've got to chop back the performance like a rose bush. That's when it's beautiful.

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.

It's heartbreaking to see theater people be forced to accept the business side of show business.

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.

As a teen, 'Thunder Road' was always in my head.

'Next to Normal' has challenged me as an actor because of how complex Diana is. And that's got me hungry for another character like that in a non-singing role because it would be interesting to express that same intensity in a different way.

I'm a strong follower of hydrotherapy.

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.