Donna Lynne Champlin

There's pre-production, and the second part is when you start rehearsal. Pre-production was a very large learning curve for me.

My first job ever was selling balloons with my brother at parades when I was about six years old. My father wanted us to learn about money, how to make it, save it, spend it, etc.

When you are in the musical theater and you are someone who looks like me, you are constantly bending yourself, bending your voice to fit the job they've given you.

Support women directors. When a play opens, and it's by a woman, put your money down.

The toughest thing for me is doing on-camera stuff as a comedian.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' and Paula are alternatives to what we, as plus-size women in America, have been told is our narrative, which is, you should be hating yourself or hating others for how you look.

With shows with plus-sized characters, there are all of these lines of being jealous at so and so or mad at so and so for being skinny and their great diets. It's so all-encompassing and exhausting. I'm not saying that's not some women, but it's just not all of us.

I've become accustomed to not being cast for television and film because of how I look.

One of the most amazing things about 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' is that every song is an original. There are no covers. I think 'Glee' had to deal with forcing covers into their plotlines. That can be difficult to pull off.

I've had a lot of therapy in my life.

I would absolutely love to do a revival of 'Bury the Dead' by Irwin Shaw on Broadway, but it would have to be Joe Calarco's version that we did Off-Broadway at The Transport Group in 2008. It was just one of those amazing shows that didn't run long enough and not nearly enough people got a chance to see.

What I miss about the theater is the live experience.