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.
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.
People comment on the way that I phrase. And in my 20s, I realized, my phrasing is jazz phrasing. I don't comply strictly with musical theater phrasing. Musical theater tends to be very one and three, and jazz is definitely two and four.
I think I just had it by osmosis: an appreciation of Duke Ellington before I really even knew who he was.
My father was a huge jazz fan, so I remember him playing Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughn, and Count Basie.
I was raised on jazz. My father, from the time I was born, used to get up early on Saturdays and Sundays and put on Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Kenny Burrell, Sarah Vaughn, John Coltrane - all these great, classic albums.
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.
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.
I gravitate to rhythmic music, so I listen to jazz, world music, Indian music, Hawaiian music, all kinds.
I'm not a pop singer; I'm not a jazz singer. And I know I sing like not a whole lot of people do; I also know that a lot of other people act like I do. And better than I do. But what informs the singing is the acting. They're not separate from each other.
I have been fortunate in my career to play a lot of lead roles. The downside to that is I don't have a life outside of the show. I go on lockdown even with my wife if the show is really difficult and I am having vocal problems.
Artists make our lives livable and enjoyable.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
I studied film scoring and orchestration and conducting and arranging in my twenties, and I scored a lot of television shows and other things.
I love rearranging and reimagining tunes, so I want my audience to enjoy hearing songs in a new way and make their own discoveries.
'Ragtime' was the most magical show that I've done. I had an incredible experience with that, with the show itself, with the cast, with the audience. The response to that show - my God, it really blew me away, the reactions to that show, the way it changed their lives and altered their thinking, their own self-discovery.
