Actors are gypsies who rarely get to choose their own career paths. But Idina Menzel, hero to theater geeks and \u201cGleeks\u201d worldwide, thinks it\u2019s no accident that her journey has led her from pop-culture landmarks \u201cRent\u201d to \u201cWicked\u201d to TV\u2019s \u201cGlee.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all focus on the underdog, the outsider, the artist, the young person who is struggling with being different,\u201d said Menzel, who will be performing in concert with Marvin Hamlisch and the Colorado Symphony on Sunday at Red Rocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cRent\u201d broke Menzel out as the original \u201cTango Maureen,\u201d and \u201cWicked\u201d made her the world\u2019s most beloved wicked (green) witch. But she\u2019s seen more in a single episode of \u201cGlee,\u201d the hit Fox TV show that celebrates the best kind of adolescent misfits, than in her entire theatrical career combined.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike \u2018Rent,\u2019 \u2018Glee\u2019 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,\u201d said Menzel, mother of a 22-month-old son. \u201cThen the more revelatory and life-changing that show is.\u201d<\/p>\n
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. \u201cI didn\u2019t slur or drool even once,\u201d she said with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019m just getting my lips back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel had just seen \u201cThe Normal Heart\u201d on Broadway, which starred her \u201cWicked\u201d director, Joe Mantello. The incendiary, Tony-winning play just closed on Broadway, but \u201cRent\u201d is about to be revived off-Broadway. Both are period pieces that touch on the early spread of AIDS.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw \u2018The Normal Heart,\u2019 and I was crushed,\u201d she said. \u201cI was a mess. It felt like a period piece, but it definitely doesn\u2019t lose its potency, power and resonance by having a little bit of time and distance.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s also why she\u2019s happy to see the return of \u201cRent\u201d: As long as AIDS exists, both shows will have something powerful to say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think \u2018Rent\u2019 should always be available to young generations, so that they are free to discover it for themselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But Menzel knows her place in young theatergoers\u2019 hearts is as Elphaba \u2014 the \u201cWicked\u201d witch who helps girls understand where evil behavior really comes from.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would be lying to say \u2018Wicked\u2019 wasn\u2019t one of the biggest milestones of my life,\u201d she said, \u201cbut not because of the accolades and the career attention I\u2019ve gotten from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Menzel\u2019s symphony tour comes to Red Rocks on Sunday, it will be by far the largest live venue she\u2019s ever performed in. It\u2019s a risk, she said, but one worth taking for the chance to play that legendary venue \u2014 and with her mom and sister, both of whom live in Boulder, in attendance.<\/p>\n
She describes the evening as \u201ca living-room performance\u201d \u2014 in a 9,500-seat living room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d she said, \u201cand that they leave feeling that I revealed a side of myself maybe they hadn\u2019t seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel was worried about being swallowed up in large houses, but the opposite has been true, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The songbook includes tunes from Menzel\u2019s Broadway career and solo album, \u201cI Stand.\u201d There are songs by Cole Porter and Hamlisch, and even some a capella.<\/p>\n
\u201cMostly I have been revisiting songs that were sort of my playlist as a kid,\u201d she said. \u201cSongs that are fun to revisit as the singer that I am now, just to see how differently I interpret them.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s it like touring with Hamlisch, a legendary composer and a longtime friend of the Colorado Symphony?<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a legend, and my new best buddy,\u201d she said. \u201d Sitting down with him and having a glass of wine after the show is a little surreal for me, just knowing that he wrote \u201cA Chorus Line\u201d and \u201cThe Way We Were.\u201d Songs he wrote that I worked on with my voice teacher when I was 8. He\u2019s so cool and down to earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get a little bit like the Catskills out there \u2014 two Jews shooting it back and forth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Actors are gypsies who rarely get to choose their own career paths. But Idina Menzel, hero to theater geeks and \u201cGleeks\u201d worldwide, thinks it\u2019s no accident that her journey has led her from pop-culture landmarks \u201cRent\u201d to \u201cWicked\u201d to TV\u2019s \u201cGlee.\u201d \u201cThey all focus on the underdog, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1125,"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-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20110713__20110715_D01_AE15THINDINAp1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-i8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124","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=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1126,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions\/1126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}