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Dramatic shows are the ones that I am attracted to.

When I was a kid, award shows were super-interesting for me. But when I started making music, it was kind of hard to watch because I believed in what I was doing and yet knew I didn't really have a shot.

I was always proud on 'Party of Five'. We never had the biggest audience, but we had arguably the most loyal.

Successful prime-time television of any genre produces some kind of emotional reaction in the viewers. There are a lot of different emotions to tap into. The emotion of the reward of discovery, the feeling of righteous anger, the feelings of pathos and sadness, or sentimentality of being moved by something.

I've felt emotions onstage that I never felt before; it has strengthened me as a person and as an artist.

'Glee' is very easy to clown because I feel like it's just crumbling. 'Smash!' 'Smash' is the ultimate. I love it because I'm all about theater. I did plays in high school and college, and it totally brings me back to that feeling: how excited you get on opening night, how it sucks when you're not learning the dance moves.

To go from Girl, Interrupted, where I had to cry every day, to a TV show like West Wing where I get to laugh and joke around every day, has been a welcome relief.

Music - you need the give and take from the audience, the feeling of attention. It's not about me: it's about the music itself.

What I strive to do is to make the theater experience something that people remember and recall rather than dismiss because it was less like their everyday experiences. So, I'm less interested in internal emotionalism and much more in making the audience laugh and cry by the devices that we use as theater actors.

As a stand up, and often in acting, there is no place for the most intense feelings. Rage, genuine sorrow, naked hope... These things don't fit on a comedy stage and if you act you'll get to express them once in a while. Music is a place for the intensely personal.