The reality of an actor's life is that we do not always have the luxury of choice. We take what comes to us.
My tastes range all over the place, from vocal standards to Motown to 70s funk & soul to 80s pop to film scores to artists like R.E.M., Ben Folds, Prince, Annie Lennox, the Police, Elvis Costello, Cat Stevens, the Ditty Bops, local bands that friends of mine are in, and the list goes on... I have no single favorite genre or artist.
I am always interested in working and fun things like health insurance.
I have performed many puppet and non-puppet characters in my career. Some I miss, some I do not. But when I miss them, I only miss performing them. The actual sweatiness of the fur and foam and fleece? Not so much.
It just happens that there is more employment for puppeteers in preschool television than anywhere else.
When I decided to pursue a career as a Muppet Performer when I was in college, it was my hope to be able to play a wide range of Muppet characters in all areas and genres of television and film.
There is nothing wrong with loving musical theatre, but I think that it's naive to hold it superior any other musical classification, especially since these other genres have been influencing Broadway more and more in recent decades.
If singing a couple of songs in a benefit will help keep the Festival alive and known, well, how can I say no to that?
I still remember discovering the classic rock station when I was in high school and being totally blown away by it.
Even though I had a great deal of respect for children's TV and theatre, it wasn't my intent to specialize solely in that area. I did indeed want to work on shows like "Sesame Street" and I am honored to be even a small part of that legacy, but I also wanted to do characters that had wider vocabulary and satirical humor.
There are lots of stories in pop music, lots of lush orchestrations, lots of attention to detail. You just have to know where to find them. The best stuff is never overt.
I've been proud to work on some really great children's shows, but they are not my only interest.
I think that so many actors are defined by the first thing that people see them do, and there were people who simply couldn't accept the fact that I was doing something that they perceived as being a radical departure from Avenue Q.
