If the themes of Idina Menzel’s songs resonate so well with her female audience members, it may be because she’s been there herself.

The 43-year-old star with the shake-the-rafters-voice, the emerald eyes and the cascade of chestnut hair has pulled off a trifecta of relatable songs that any actress would envy.

First, there was Elphaba, the odd-green-girl-out from Wicked, who declared her independence with the clarion call of Stephen Schwartz’s “Defying Gravity,” a number so potent that — as Ana Gasteyer once said — “every woman I know has wept over it while on the Stairmaster.”

Then, for a slightly younger demographic, she delivered the goods in Disney’s Frozen, launching Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez’s Oscar-winning hit “Let It Go” like it was a melodic guided missile.

And now, back on Broadway, she’s bringing all the generations together with a powerhouse number called “Always Starting Over” by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, which brings the house down every night in the powerful new musical, If/Then, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

So how does she feel about hitting the bullseye so many times in a row?
“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” she laughs from her dressing room, between a matinee and an evening performance. “I’ve thought about it myself. It’s not that I’ve been so successful that I can just sit at home and wait for the perfect project with the perfect song to come along. Sometimes, it’s all about taking a job and paying the bills.
“But I do believe that you’re given things in your life that you need, things you can explore that are going to teach you something about yourself. Every role or character or song can come at a time in your life when it relates to what you’re going through and you learn how to use it.”

Continue reading “Idina Menzel lets it go where the music takes her”