CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Misfortune almost strikes during Act 1 of the musical “Wicked” when Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, gets caught mid-song in a rain shower. Funnily enough, she doesn’t melt. For an audience that knows “The Wizard of Oz,” it’s an early hint […]
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Weeks ahead of her first show with the Cleveland Orchestra in years, Idina Menzel had yet to determine a setlist. She wasn’t worried, however. She may not have known at that point exactly which songs she was going to sing, but she knew how she […]
They are the big mouths of musical theater. The ones with their dental work on display. The ones who look as if they’re eating an invisible apple whole. They sing the most dramatic songs, starting low and soft to win your confidence. But the breathy pianissimo is just […]
Idina Menzel is a Tony-winning actress and singer celebrated for her iconic roles in Wicked, Rent, and Frozen. Known for her powerhouse vocals, she’s a Broadway legend and advocate for self-expression and inclusion. The Shift: Who are three women that inspire you? Idina:Ruth Bader Ginsburg Sarah Vaughan My […]
When Idina Menzel stepped foot into Tina Landau’s office and saw it filled with photos of trees, she knew she’d found the right director to make her vision come to life. She’d recently fallen in love with redwoods — that mythical species of tree that stretches taller than […]
Musicals are often all about escapism, and in Idina Menzel’s grand return to Broadway, she takes that idea to a whole new level. “How would it feel to stop my life and be able to get completely away?” she says. She explores this question is Redwood, which she […]
Shortly before a run-through of her new Broadway musical, “Redwood,” Idina Menzel reflected on her performing roots that stretch back to Long Island. “Baylis Elementary, third grade,” she said during a Zoom chat from the Nederlander Theatre, where the show opens Thursday. “That was my very first solo […]
With Redwood, Menzel and an all-female creative team bring a new musical to the Great White Way. Idina Menzel is sitting in the same dressing room she did almost 30 years ago, when she made her Broadway debut as Maureen Johnson in Rent. This time around, though, her […]
The Tony winner is back on Broadway in Redwood, and she’s once again flying. There is something poetically fortuitous about Idina Menzel returning to Broadway in a musical called Redwood. While she may only stand at 5’6”, her presence is colossal. Perhaps it’s her iconic career (Rent, Wicked, […]
As the actress prepares to open Broadway’s ‘Redwood,’ she exclusively tells Parade she sometimes thinks about ‘leaving the business and just sort of going off the grid.’ Two weeks before Idina Menzel returned to Broadway in the new musical Redwood, wildfire began to quickly envelope Southern California. Like […]
Menzel, a fan favorite since “Rent,” is back on Broadway in “Redwood,” and this time she’s climbing conifers. Idina Menzel was sitting on a bench in a California redwood grove, yearning for silence. It was late one autumn afternoon, and I had been trying for months to get […]
Idina Menzel and her 15-year-old son Walker Diggs were all smiles at the Los Angeles premiere of “Wicked” on Nov. 9. But Menzel says she thought long and hard before allowing her son to join her on the red carpet. “I never let him ever go on the red […]
Idina Menzel’s return to Broadway after 10 years in an all-new musical is the very definition of a theatrical event. Add to that a thrilling, immersive production that takes audiences inside a canopy of ancient trees, paired with a gorgeous original score and a moving story of resilience, […]
The new Broadway musical Redwood aims high. Literally. Much of the show, which brings musical theater icon Idina Menzel back to Broadway for the first time in a decade, takes place hundreds of feet in the air, in the canopy of the redwood forest in Northern California. Conjuring […]
Only the women who’ve played Elphaba and Glinda in the show’s two decades onstage understand why the roles are so taxing — and so rewarding, too. The graduates of Shiz University are making their alma mater proud. In the 21 years since “Wicked” opened in New York, 43 […]