I truly believe that when a person makes a concrete decision and takes action towards a goal that they've set, that the universe will step in and provide opportunities.

I always watch the work I do.

When I first got to New York, all I did was musicals. After a few years I had to make a conscious choice to close the door on musicals, because I was getting pigeon-holed as a musical theater performer.

The first thing I do is brush my teeth - we like to start the morning with fresh breath - and put on my pajamas and meander down to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. No coffee. No caffeine.

All you have is yourself and what you have to present, and just focus on that. And if you can walk out of the audition and say to yourself, 'I hit all my beats,' 'I accomplished my emotional honesty,' or 'I remembered my words,' then that's winning.

I just think there are enough hours in the day. If you just focus and dedicate yourself and approach each task as it presents itself, you can accomplish a lot.

I wanted to make a home that was similar to the kind of home that my mother made. To be able to create something like that in my adopted city, New York City, one of the toughest cities on the planet, is really special.

I wake up late, say 10 or 11, because we've usually been out and about town until 2 or 3 A.M. listening to music at the jazz clubs or hitting the jazz clubs post-theater.

I took the whole college prep trajectory, and then in my senior year of high school, I decided that performing was something that I had always done as a kid, and I loved it... I said, 'This makes people happy when I do this, I feel good, I get to pretend and explore other areas and learn so much'.

There was a time, actually, when I hadn't been singing, and I'd lost a lot of my ability. My range had shrunk.