You’d look out and there’d be little babies watching the show, and boys and girls. They loved the cowboys, and they loved Annie. There were young people seeing the show for the first time. I stayed for two years because I enjoyed it so much.
“Into the Woods” was… a lot of running around in the woods! I can’t wait to see the show again. People didn’t realize it back then, but kids still come up to me-young people-and they talk about it. It really made its mark.
Stephen Sondheim told me that Oscar Hammerstein believed everything that he wrote. So there’s great truth in the songs, and that’s what was so wonderful to find.
George M. is where I met my dear friend Joel Grey. We connected at rehearsal one day during a five-minute break. We were both looking out the same window and we knew in five minutes that we’d made a connection.
It was one of the most exciting, perfect evenings of my life, my solo debut at Carnegie Hall. And knowing we were all there to raise money for Gay Men’s Health Crisis made the evening an extraordinary experience.
In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Anton Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!
I’ve been fortunate in my career to have performed in revivals of great musicals and to have originated roles in musicals that have in turn been revived. And I’m not dead!
