Alice Ripley, star of the musical Next To Normal--for which she won a Tony Award in 2009--talks about the challenge of playing the emotionally disturbed mother of a "typical" American family and describes how the show's music drives both the character and her performance. She also talks about her parallel career as a rock singer and songwriter, her Broadway debut in The Who's Tommy, the remarkable experience of appearing as one-half of the conjoined Hilton Sisters in Side Show, the unique style of James Joyce's The Dead, and the difficulty of playing a role while being doused by audience-wielded water guns in The Rocky Horror Show.
