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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I've always been drawn to raw material.

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

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.

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

I wasn't a musical-theater kid. We went to plays at school and took field trips to see Shakespeare. And that really sparked that fire for me, and so that's still going, and I haven't given up on it.

I would love to play Mary in 'Long Day's Journey Into Night' or 'Virginia Woolf' or a comedy - just, like, a slapstick comedy.

What made me so brave? Maybe it was being the middle kid of 11, and we all had to share one bathroom. New underwear? I never discovered that until I got into college.

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 love every minute of my work.

I had to go off by myself to try and discover what my talent really was.

Part of the frustration of being bipolar is people don't understand what it feels like.

It's nice to be in a smaller room. I like the big arenas as well, but at my core, I'm a live performer, so it's nice to be able to feel the warmth of everybody in the room.

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.

'American Psycho' reminds me of my track in 'Tommy,' my first Broadway show. It's similar conceptually and has that rock n' roll streak.

Don't get me wrong: I love having my own song and being the center of attention, but I also love being part of the group and making the show work in a more anonymous way.

Facebook and Twitter and Instagram are excellent ways to keep in touch with the audience and maintain your image an 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.

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.

'Next To Normal' is rock music. It's a rock opera. That, definitely, has a place in popular music.

'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.

I take a lot of naps.

I play the guitar every day.

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.

There were eleven kids, and we all shared a bathroom. It was enough to drive us all insane.

Chrissie Hynde's from Ohio, and so am I. If there's a Cleveland sound, that's what it is.

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 just think Brian d'Arcy James is a dream come true. I've known of him ever since I saw him in 'Titanic,' and I fell crazy in love with him at that moment.

I'm kind of a dork at being able to dress myself.

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!'

You always kind of feel like you're rolling the dice as an actor.

My Mickey Mouse ears were given to me by a dear friend. They remind me of how I need to be silly.

'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.

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.