Fear is destructive. Fear and creativity don't mix. Ultimately, it doesn't do you any good.

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 gravitate to rhythmic music, so I listen to jazz, world music, Indian music, Hawaiian music, all kinds.

Oddly enough, I almost never listen to show tunes. But there are some shows I love, like Adam Guettel's 'Floyd Collins.'

Years ago, I couldn't get arrested in commercials because of my look: 'Is he Jewish, Hispanic, or African-American?' I ended up doing voiceover work, which has been great. Honestly, I can't complain.

I'm fortunate that I've been able to work on Broadway, but it doesn't give me an outside life. So I decided to go into the concert world. I do 40 to 50 shows. That takes one to three days a week, and I'm home the rest of the time.

Doing eight shows a week is hard.

That's the magic of art and the magic of theatre: it has the power to transform an audience, an individual, or en masse, to transform them and give them an epiphanal experience that changes their life, opens their hearts and their minds and the way they think.

The thing about doing concerts is that it's doing a live show. It's on my schedule. It's songs I want to sing. It's saying what I want to say. It's working with the people I want to work with. I don't have to worry about pleasing other people - I can do what I want, and people come along and go for the ride.

I can't remember ever not singing.

I kind of feel the career chose me. My motto has always been, 'Go where I'm wanted.'

The first audition I did was for 'Trapper John, M.D.' I was surprised to get the part, and then to have it last for seven years was a bonus.

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.

I studied arranging and orchestration a number of years ago, so I have a home studio and arrange about three-fourths of my songs on the computer. Since writing orchestration is tedious, I often put an arrangement on the keyboard and let someone better-qualified finish it.

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.

I love doing theater. It's what I grew up in and is my roots. I get a huge fulfillment from it. But if my path is to go someplace else, hey, I'm there.

Each time I have performed in Utah, I had a great time, and the audiences seem to enjoy what I do. The audiences are very warm and very appreciative.

There is a built-in appreciation for music that is so much a part of the LDS culture. Utahns know that music can be divine and can touch a person's spirit in a unique way.

I can count on one hand the number of conductors-composers-arrangers that I enjoy working with, and at the top of that list is Mack Wilberg. I feel like I've known Mack forever. I'm just nuts for him.

Music, for me, is the most sacred of the arts. I say that because music communicates in a way that no other art form can. All great art has a spirit that we recognize and appreciate, but music goes directly to your heart.

The Actors Fund is a human services organization, so our focus has been on caring for the entire human as opposed to dealing with the disease.

When you have a community that's strong in the arts, it brings all sorts of attention and different businesses into the community.

People in the performing arts have a lot of other skills they don't realize they can utilize, and part of what the Actors Fund program is there to do is wake their head up to realize there are other things they can do.

It's nearly impossible to make a living in the arts.

Cabaret presents different challenges, as it is all on me. I love having the freedom to say anything you want - do anything you want. It is a lot of responsibility, and if it works, you get all the kudos, and if not - all the blame.

On Broadway, you are working with some incredible people, and they have great reasons for doing things the way they do.

My mother was the first African-American policewoman in Seattle - recruited, actually - and she did it for only 2 years, as she did not want to carry a gun. She worked mostly on domestic disturbances. The NAACP wanted her to do it. She did not actually have the temperament to be a cop - she was very sweet. She had a Masters in social work.

Something is guiding my career; I don't know what it is. When I look back at my career, I call myself the most lucky actor in the world. It is all I have ever done. I do master classes, and I tell people not to use me as an example. I do not know anyone like me - not to brag - it is just very unusual.

You need raw talent to be successful.

People who are artists professionally are not artists because they want to be artists; they have to be artists. They're compelled to get that creativity out and to share that with others.

Performing in the theater is a very ethereal profession because you do it once and it goes out into the ether and it goes into people's minds and that's the only place that it ever exists. And it never exists truly; it only exists in the way that people think they remember it. But it's a really powerful way to tell a story and to pass something on.

What I love about piano and vocal is it's incredibly pure, and it gets down to the essence of the song because you're not distracted by an orchestra. When it's just a piano and a voice, it's about the purity of singing the song.

When I was preparing 'Kiss Me, Kate,' I did go to the Museum of Broadcasting and watched an old kinescope of Alfred Drake doing the role on a television special. It was interesting, but I didn't feel any need to try to copy him.

Usually, I don't feel comfortable with a character until I've played him before an audience for several performances. It is not until after three months of performing that I learn to discover what I call 'all the nooks and crannies' of the person.

I'm one of the few lucky actors in the world. I've never waited tables. I never pumped gas. I've always earned a living. I never had to borrow from my parents. I was the first in our family to own a new car.

I think the problem is when people hear 'arts education,' they think, 'I don't want my son to be some painter that's going to be hanging in some museum after he dies. I don't want my daughter to be a struggling artist making no money.' People don't realize it's more than that. It's beautiful. It brings beauty to our lives.

Artists make our lives livable and enjoyable.

The first role that I played as a musical - I was 14 years old, and I played Birdie in 'Bye Bye Birdie.' That was an awakening of, 'Wow, I'm good at that. People are responding.' And I hardly knew what I was doing back then, but there was something that people were seeing.

I'm the chairman of the board of the Actor's Fund. It's an incredible organization. It helps anybody that has made their living in the performing arts and entertainment: actors, singers, dancers, film producers, agents, managers, ticket takers, writers, anybody in times of need or crisis.

Astaire was ballroom, basically, and Gene Kelly had such athleticism - that's always what I responded to and what just blew my head open when I watched Gene Kelly's numbers. But, Fred Astaire was just so incredibly inventive and so, so smooth - so smooth.

Honestly, I hate watching myself on TV - I have always hated watching myself and listening to myself.

I'd always been a huge fan of Stephen Schwartz.

I always like to talk about how important space is. Art is in the spaces. Anybody can sing a note; it takes an artist to sing the spaces. Anybody can paint a brushstroke; it takes an artist to know when not to put the brushstroke.

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.