PAST<\/u>:<\/b><\/span> \u201cWicked<\/i> truly changed my life, it afforded me so many new opportunities. And I fell in love with the character. There were a lot of similarities with Elphaba and how I feel about myself and my own life – learning to come out of myself, learning what makes me different in the world and celebrating that. And then coming to London \u2026 I\u2019ve always wanted to do a show in the West End so that was a huge honour for me. It was also a chance to rediscover the character having had more experience. I never got to do that before. The first time around, you\u2019re nervous you\u2019re going to get fired. But once you\u2019ve won the Tony Award, you think, okay maybe they won\u2019t fire me, I can relax a little and just enjoy it. I was able to delve into Elphaba even more and discovered new things.<\/p>\n \u201cI had the most rewarding life experience here in London. I loved my cast. They all really embraced me, took me in and showed me the city inside out. Despite being the only American, I felt really comfortable with everyone, I made friends for life. And I loved the audiences, they were so responsive and encouraging. That\u2019s why winning the Whatsonstage.com Award meant so much and felt like such an accomplishment. Coming from another country, it was particularly exciting to come here and make so many friends and fans. I don\u2019t take that lightly.<\/p>\n \u201cMore than awards, though, it\u2019s the success of Wicked<\/i> all over the world that gives me the most satisfaction. The idea of originating a role in a show that\u2019s recognised internationally, that resonates this beautiful message with people in so many different languages \u2026 that\u2019s something I\u2019m very proud to have been a part of.<\/p>\n \u201cI was with the show for three-and-a-half years – doing readings, workshops, rewrites and San Francisco – before we even got to Broadway, where I did it for a year and a half. And later I came to London. Would I ever return to it again? I\u2019d never say never. It\u2019s something very dear to me. But I think twice is enough for now. I want to try some other things. I definitely want to get back to the stage, though, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n PRESENT<\/u>:<\/b><\/span> \u201cChess<\/i> is about life and manipulation, and the struggle between your mind and your heart. It\u2019s a story about two champion chess players during the Cold War. One is from the Soviet Union and one is from America. It\u2019s a love story, sort of a triangle. Josh Groban plays Anatoly, who\u2019s the Russian, and Adam Pascal is the Bobby Fisher character, who\u2019s named Freddie Trumper. I play a woman named Florence who they both love. I like her because she\u2019s very tough and smart and yet she can be extremely vulnerable.<\/p>\n \u201cChess<\/i> is a show I\u2019ve never done, but people have often said the role of Florence is one I could identify with so I was looking forward to getting inside of her, working with Tim Rice and performing at the Royal Albert Hall, which I\u2019ve never even visited before \u2013 it\u2019s a little daunting. I\u2019m a huge fan of Josh Groban. I\u2019ve worked with him a couple of times. He\u2019s a sweetheart and incredibly talented, and he\u2019s always growing as an artist.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great to work with Kerry Ellis again too and to sing \u2018I Know Him So Well\u2019 with her. Kerry and I have actually never been on stage at the same time before. When I was in the London production of Wicked<\/i>, she was my understudy – when I was working, she wasn\u2019t and when she was working, I wasn\u2019t. So we didn\u2019t get to spend as much quality time together as I would have liked. It\u2019s wonderful now to hear her up close. I have tremendous respect for her and her sound. It\u2019s really clear and beautiful, and I love her interpretation and phrasings. It\u2019s exciting to share the stage with her in a different light but also to pay homage to the show that we\u2019ve both come from.\u201d<\/p>\n FUTURE<\/u>:<\/b><\/span> \u201cI like the way my career is going, it\u2019s more multi-faceted and currently sort of vacillating between recording and film stuff. That allows me to go away and appreciate how much I love theatre and miss it for a minute \u2013 then I can come back with a fresh take.<\/p>\n \u201cI just released my own album, called I Stand<\/i>, in the States. It\u2019s more of a pop album and it\u2019s produced by Glen Ballard, who produced Alanis Morrissette\u2019s first album and Annie Lennox\u2019s last album. He\u2019s someone I\u2019ve always wanted to work with. I wanted to make the transition from the theatre to the pop world without losing my roots. I thought he would be a great guide for me. It will probably come out here in the fall. I co-wrote nine out of the ten songs so it\u2019s very personal to me. I\u2019m going on a tour of the States this summer to about 20 different cities, and I hope to come here in the fall and do the same thing.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing a couple of other gigs while I\u2019m here for Chess<\/i>. I\u2019m performing at G-A-Y one night. I go on at 1.00am and do two songs, a remix of \u2018Gorgeous\u2019 from I Stand<\/i> and \u2018Defying Gravity\u2019 from Wicked<\/i>. And then I\u2019ve got an intimate show at the Ambassadors Theatre so that I can reunite with my London friends and fans but also introduce myself to my record label and other representatives here. I heard that that concert sold out in less than 30 minutes \u2013 it\u2019s not the biggest venue in the world but I was so proud!<\/p>\n \u201cI do plan to come back to the stage. I\u2019ve got nothing specific planned, but I\u2019m working on a couple of different things. I know that I want to keep doing original pieces. That\u2019s been my pattern. It\u2019s a process that I find to be most rewarding, working on shows with composers from their embryonic stages is a terrific experience. And if anyone wants to hire me for something over here, I\u2019m always looking for an excuse to come back! I really did fall in love with London.\u201d<\/p>\n – Idina Menzel was talking to Terri Paddock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" American Idina Menzel originated the role of Elphaba in Wicked in both New York & London, winning the Tony & Whatsonstage.com Awards for Best Actress in a Musical. She\u2019s back in London this week for Chess at the Royal Albert Hall. Her solo pop album I Stand is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-hh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1072,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions\/1072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n