I wish Howard Ashman was still alive so I could just meet him and tell him his words are magic. It's so fun to say. He has such great alliteration and paints the most vivid images with his lyrics

I'm praying for healing for our nation. For retaliation that yields constructive results. Peaceful protests. We need each other.

There's a bit of a difference in the way he sounds. Samuel E. Wright lent his voice and personality to the animated film with his booming voice. I have a high-tenor voice. Instead, I have to figure out a way to convince the audience to come along with me and accept this new texture and tambour to the way Sebastian sounds. I have a great dialect coach.

I've grown up watching and admiring Norm. Sherie actually starred in the first off-Broadway show I ever saw in New York, which was The Last Five Years. It's amazing how things come full-circle and how the community (once you hang around it long enough) grows smaller and smaller as it grows. Sharing the stage with these people is more than a dream come true it's so special. They're so warm and giving and offer the best advice. Sherie is very nice and maternal and nurturing.

Meanwhile someone is shining my head to get it dry to attach my top-hat to my head with toupee tape. I get into microphone and get back up into my dressing room for the rest of my costume. I get snapped into all these things and layers and bundled up. I walk downstairs to the pit. Someone hands me my baton (which lights up like a wand) and I watch the first three minutes of the show. Then I come up out of the pit and there I am.

I've been in New York for going on five years now, and I always thought I would make a mark and do something but I never thought it would be this big of a deal. I'm so blessed and I'm truly honored.

I pinch myself every night when I hear the overture starting. I'm so overwhelmed by the whole process, and humbled and giddy all at the same time because I can't believe it's me that gets to sing these songs every night.