Idina Menzel, Ana Gasteyer and others open up on the pleasures and perils of playing the iconic “Wicked” character eight times a week. There may be no more spellbinding protagonist in contemporary musical theater than Elphaba Thropp, that green-skinned wallflower with a penchant for soaring over Oz and […]
Idina Menzel says that when the musical “Rent,” in which she played the flirty, bisexual performance artist Maureen, was making its surprising leap to prominence in the mid-1990s, journalists tended to overplay the similarities between the fresh-faced cast and the young East Village bohemians they were representing onstage. […]
Defying the Oz It’s ironic that Idina Menzel’s first line of dialogue in a Broadway show was “Which way to the stage?” More than eight years after her debut in Rent, this born performer shows no signs of needing directions. Menzel, a Long Island native who grew up dreaming […]
A few days before Halloween, Idina Menzel found herself 200 feet in the air, sitting in the canopy of a redwood forest. Outfitted in a bulky safety harness, puffer vest, climbing gloves and a bright red helmet, the voice of Elphaba and Elsa couldn’t help but break into […]
There’s a late-’80s episode of The Golden Girls where Blanche and Rose befriend two teenagers as part of the “Be a Pal” program. The young ladies want to go to a movie and Rose, bubbly as always, suggests a few options: “We can go see Oliver & Company. […]
It’s weird to be looked up to by little girls,” says Idina Menzel. We’re sitting at a cafeteria table in the cavernous brass-and-chrome lobby of the Public Theater. It’s the week before previews for her latest musical vehicle, Michael John LaChuisa’s See What I Wanna See, and Menzel […]
EIGHT times a week, Idina Menzel, who plays the witch Elphaba in the Broadway musical ”Wicked” at the Gershwin Theater, covers her face, hands and neck with green makeup, then puts on a matching bodysuit so that she is the color of a snow pea from head to […]
Idina Menzel will reprise her Tony-winning performance as the green-faced Elphaba in the upcoming West End production of Stephen Schwartz’s hit musical Wicked. The musical, which is currently playing Broadway, Chicago and a national tour, will officially open at London’s Victoria Apollo — currently host to Billy Joel’s […]
Michael Cole at a Wicked Reading in December 2001 Part of The Schwartz Scene back issue archives. Carol asked me to write about my experience singing in the ensemble of the December reading of WICKED. For those of you who don’t know, a “reading” of a musical or […]
John Fante, a major ‘little-known’ author, produced autobiographical novels about his early struggles which have inspired a select cadre of admirers. Among the most committed of these is writer-director Robert Towne, who’s been trying to get Fante’s Ask The Dust made for years. The upshot is a careful, […]
When “Rent,” a rock musical version of Puccini’s “La Boheme” opened off-Broadway last February, Jonathan Larson garnered the kind of rave reviews that young, struggling composer-lyricists pray and dream for. Larson wasn’t there to read the reviews–he died of an aortic aneurysm on the night of the final […]
Two months, one Pulitzer Prize and acres of magazine and newspaper pages later, the waiflike hopes of the American musical are living in fancier digs. Uprooted by a cyclone of critical ecstasy and a hunger for theatrical novelty, they have posed for fashion layouts, inspired a Bloomingdale’s ad […]
Idina Menzel has made a specialty of playing women who are not easily daunted. The Tony Award-winning actress and singer, starring in the new musical If/Then, made her Broadway debut as the decidedly self-possessed Maureen Johnson in Rent. She later created the role of Elphaba, the green-skinned heroine […]
If/Then is a love letter to New York: the places, people and moments that change our lives and link us together. If/Then‘s “A Map of New York” series documents the pivotal locations of its stars and creators. This week: Idina Menzel. IDINA MENZEL’S MAP OF NEW YORK As […]
IDINA MENZEL Ever since she burst forth on the stage of the Nederlander Theatre in the original cast of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent, Idina Menzel has been a force to be reckoned with in the musical theatre. The New York native possesses one of the most unique […]