I like to sing the songs people love, like 'Impossible Dream.'
The first time I really had an influence on a show was during 'Ragtime.' It's still the most magical show that I've ever done.
My favorite music is jazz, actually. It's what I listen to, it's what I was raised on, and it's what I prefer to sing.
My father was a huge jazz fan, so I remember him playing Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughn, and Count Basie.
I don't recommend skipping college, but things have worked out for me.
I gravitate to rhythmic music, so I listen to jazz, world music, Indian music, Hawaiian music, all kinds.
Music is liquid. It's meant to be messed with and played with and stretched and pulled and pushed, I think.
To take the ugly language out of 'Ragtime' is to sanitize it, and that does it a great disservice.
When I was 6 years old, I asked my parents for an organ. I don't have any idea why I wanted an organ.
When you're doing eight shows a week, you don't have much of a personal life.
Oddly enough, I almost never listen to show tunes. But there are some shows I love, like Adam Guettel's 'Floyd Collins.'
I like being different people.
I hate those vacuous musicals, the happy-happy, 'Let's have a good time' shows.
If you can make an audience laugh, you can make them love any character.
Left to my own devices, I would go to bed at 230 or 3, but I can't do that if I'm getting up at 650!
Fear is destructive. Fear and creativity don't mix. Ultimately, it doesn't do you any good.
Doing eight shows a week is hard.
I can't remember ever not singing.
You lose more than you win in life, and that's OK. That's the nature of life.
Variety is the key to not being bored.
My job as an entertainer is to give a great show.
I love rearranging and reimagining tunes, so I want my audience to enjoy hearing songs in a new way and make their own discoveries.
My family's very, very mixed. I am, I guess, a kind of melting pot in a person.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I thought, 'Whatever hits, I'll go that direction. If it's music, fine; if it's acting, fine.'
I've always felt that my career was in wiser hands than mine. Whatever, in its good time, is supposed to happen will happen.
It's nearly impossible to make a living in the arts.
