Quotes from Alice Ripley

'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.

George Hearn taught me that you learn that there are roles that are Tony roles and roles that are not.

Springsteen's 'Thunder Road' and Carole King's 'It's Too Late' are examples of why I am a singer/songwriter. I practice these songs every day. The melodies are timeless in the rock world, the lyrics are words that I need to say, and they need to be heard again.

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

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

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

'Next to Normal' has challenged me as an actor because of how complex Diana is. And that's got me hungry for another character like that in a non-singing role because it would be interesting to express that same intensity in a different way.

Parents are destined to sin against their kids; it's inevitable. As is narcissism and the human condition. Everyone has their ego and their ambitions. Life happens in between.

I have learned that music comes in all shapes and sizes.

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.

The road's a tough life, but I said 'yes,' because as a kid growing up in Ohio, I never had a chance to see a Tony-winning actress in a role she won the Tony for.

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.

I cry at Kodak commercials.

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.

Everyone has some sort of connection to mental illness.

As long as a tune has the power to move me, I'm a lifelong fan.

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

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

There is genuine healing in a beautifully crafted musical theatre song, like Stephen Sondheim's 'Losing My Mind,' or a pop music gem like Joni Mitchell's 'Help Me.'

I take musical theater seriously.

I have fallen deeply in love with songs - musical theatre songs included - over the years, and this experience has taught me to hear and honor the writer's voice in my soul.

I take a lot of naps.

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.

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.