Idina-Here: The Premiere Idina Menzel Resource

Broadway’s Idina Menzel is gleeful to play Red Rocks with Marvin Hamlisch

Actors are gypsies who rarely get to choose their own career paths. But Idina Menzel, hero to theater geeks and “Gleeks” worldwide, thinks it’s no accident that her journey has led her from pop-culture landmarks “Rent” to “Wicked” to TV’s “Glee.”

“They all focus on the underdog, the outsider, the artist, the young person who is struggling with being different,” said Menzel, who will be performing in concert with Marvin Hamlisch and the Colorado Symphony on Sunday at Red Rocks.

“Rent” broke Menzel out as the original “Tango Maureen,” and “Wicked” made her the world’s most beloved wicked (green) witch. But she’s seen more in a single episode of “Glee,” the hit Fox TV show that celebrates the best kind of adolescent misfits, than in her entire theatrical career combined.

“Like ‘Rent,’ ‘Glee’ has dealt a lot with issues of sexual orientation. And the more they make that topic accessible to young audiences, then the more it can become a conversation between parents and kids,” said Menzel, mother of a 22-month-old son. “Then the more revelatory and life-changing that show is.”

A game Menzel was taking a few minutes to talk about her career and upcoming concert, having just been shot up with Novocain. But she came through the interview quite nicely. “I didn’t slur or drool even once,” she said with a laugh. “I’m just getting my lips back.”

Menzel had just seen “The Normal Heart” on Broadway, which starred her “Wicked” director, Joe Mantello. The incendiary, Tony-winning play just closed on Broadway, but “Rent” is about to be revived off-Broadway. Both are period pieces that touch on the early spread of AIDS.

“I saw ‘The Normal Heart,’ and I was crushed,” she said. “I was a mess. It felt like a period piece, but it definitely doesn’t lose its potency, power and resonance by having a little bit of time and distance.”

That’s also why she’s happy to see the return of “Rent”: As long as AIDS exists, both shows will have something powerful to say.

“I think ‘Rent’ should always be available to young generations, so that they are free to discover it for themselves,” she said.

But Menzel knows her place in young theatergoers’ hearts is as Elphaba — the “Wicked” witch who helps girls understand where evil behavior really comes from.

“I would be lying to say ‘Wicked’ wasn’t one of the biggest milestones of my life,” she said, “but not because of the accolades and the career attention I’ve gotten from it.

“There was a synchronicity between the lessons I learned as a person and from that character. This is so special to me, the idea of being a really powerful woman and not having to hide your gifts. And how to harness that kind of power and make it accessible in society. I know I deal with that in my own life, and I know many other women do, as well.”

When Menzel’s symphony tour comes to Red Rocks on Sunday, it will be by far the largest live venue she’s ever performed in. It’s a risk, she said, but one worth taking for the chance to play that legendary venue — and with her mom and sister, both of whom live in Boulder, in attendance.

She describes the evening as “a living-room performance” — in a 9,500-seat living room.

“I was nervous about embarking on this tour, because no matter how big a venue gets, and no matter how grandiose the orchestra is, I really feel it is important that I maintain some sort of intimacy with my audience,” she said, “and that they leave feeling that I revealed a side of myself maybe they hadn’t seen before.”

Menzel was worried about being swallowed up in large houses, but the opposite has been true, she said.

“I go out there, and I take off my heels, and I stand in front of these amazing musicians, and there is an elegance and a class to the evening,” she said.

The songbook includes tunes from Menzel’s Broadway career and solo album, “I Stand.” There are songs by Cole Porter and Hamlisch, and even some a capella.

“Mostly I have been revisiting songs that were sort of my playlist as a kid,” she said. “Songs that are fun to revisit as the singer that I am now, just to see how differently I interpret them.”

So what’s it like touring with Hamlisch, a legendary composer and a longtime friend of the Colorado Symphony?

“He’s a legend, and my new best buddy,” she said. ” Sitting down with him and having a glass of wine after the show is a little surreal for me, just knowing that he wrote “A Chorus Line” and “The Way We Were.” Songs he wrote that I worked on with my voice teacher when I was 8. He’s so cool and down to earth.

“We get a little bit like the Catskills out there — two Jews shooting it back and forth.”

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