{"id":1234,"date":"2024-07-12T19:34:03","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T23:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2024-07-12T19:34:03","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T23:34:03","slug":"idina-menzel-to-illuminate-the-gaillard-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/idina-menzel-to-illuminate-the-gaillard-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Idina Menzel to illuminate the Gaillard stage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Broadway legend Idina Menzel brings her <em>Take Me or Leave Me<\/em> tour to the Gaillard Center Aug. 3, a one woman show featuring fan favorite songs from throughout Menzel\u2019s illustrious career \u2014 iconic hits from <em>Wicked, Rent, Frozen<\/em>, and newer music from her dance album, <em>Drama Queen<\/em>, released last summer.<\/p>\n<p>In between songs like <em>Frozen\u2019s<\/em> \u201cLet it Go,\u201d <em>Wicked\u2019s<\/em> \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d and Rent\u2019s \u201cTake Me or Leave Me\u201d (for which the tour is named), Menzel will offer stories from the course of her life on the stage. Menzel is widely known for playing independent, badass female characters who defy societal norms \u2014 the Long Island native originated some of the most iconic musical theater roles of all time: Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked.<\/p>\n<p>Naming the show after the song she belts in <em>Rent<\/em> as Maureen is not only a tribute to where she got her start, Menzel said in an interview with the <em>Charleston City Paper<\/em>, but also a nod to the fact that this tour shows the human side of the larger-than-life performer who\u2019s been dubbed the \u201cqueen of Broadway\u201d and the \u201cStreisand of her generation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u200a\u2018Take me or leave me\u2019 means, I\u2019m going to give you everything. I\u2019m going to allow you to see all sides of who I am through my music, through my voice \u2014 my inner voice and my literal voice. To quote from Rent, I\u2019m going to \u2018take a leap of faith\u2019 and hope that you, as an audience, will accept me for who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Connecting with fans<\/h3>\n<p>Menzel said she\u2019s exhilarated by the opportunity to connect with her multi-generational audience through this national tour. This tour is her second, following a world tour in 2015.<br \/>\n\u201cIt\u2019s emotional for me to get on stage every night and reconnect with my audience. I feel so lucky that I\u2019ve had such supportive fans throughout the years. We\u2019ve grown up together in a lot of ways \u2014 many of my fans from Rent, for example, are now parents and they\u2019re bringing their kids who love <em>Frozen<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \"><\/aside>\n<p>Menzel added gratitude that her fans have been supportive of her movement into different directions, like her most recent dance album Drama Queen, released in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheater fans are the greatest, because they appreciate all kinds of music; they\u2019re very sophisticated listeners,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so when I wanted to go in a dance direction, or a rock direction, or celebrate my theater career, I learned that they would actually accept all those things in one show \u2026 I used to worry that the incongruence of that would feel unfocused. But it\u2019s all facets of who I am \u2014 that\u2019s the common denominator.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \"><\/aside>\n<p>Figuring out the set list meant finding a balance between the songs fans expect and love, plus songs that Menzel is excited to reinterpret, or even songs she\u2019ll perform for the first time.<br \/>\n\u201cI want to do the songs that people love, but I also want to reinterpret them sometimes. For me, as an artist, I like to try new things. So finding that marriage is fun and challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And in between songs, Menzel shares stories from her life and career. Since connecting with the fans is a big motivation behind the show, she takes questions from the audience and approaches each stop on the tour with a sense of spontaneity, she said.<\/p>\n<div id=\"emp-18f69\" class=\"emp-action emp-ad\"><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI get to chronicle my life through music. I get to talk about my experience during <em>Rent<\/em>, having that experience as my very first and how it informs who I am. There\u2019s lots of fun <em>Wicked<\/em> stories and stories about being green. There\u2019s mom stories, stories about trying to balance being a parent and a performer \u2026 how I try to stay in the moment and be present in my life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach audience is new for me, and I really like to find the humor in the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bold authenticity<\/h3>\n<p>Ultimately, Menzel said her hope is that the Take Me or Leave Me tour is revealing and honest.<br \/>\n\u201cI really do feel like the greatest shows that I\u2019ve ever seen are ones where the performer allows us to see a little bit into their soul. I\u2019ve always felt strongly about remaining vulnerable and trying to be as authentic as I can. Trying to take any room, no matter how big, and make it feel like my living room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This sentiment of bold authenticity calls to mind the characters Menzel\u2019s known for: Maureen, who is not afraid to take on the establishment and fight for what she believes in; Elphaba, who is willing to be wicked if it means she can do good; and Queen Elsa, who exemplifies resilience, bravery and radical self acceptance. It\u2019s not surprising then, that Menzel\u2019s advice for young artists is to embrace their imperfections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[My advice for artists] would be to not compromise who you are for anyone. Know deep in your heart that those imperfections make up who we are, and end up being the things that draw people closer to us. So embrace the things that make us unique. And be patient.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>See Idina Menzel\u2019s Take Me or Leave Me tour as she stops in Charleston, 7:30 p.m. Aug. 3. Visit <a href=\"https:\/\/gaillardcenter.org\/\">gaillardcenter.org<\/a> for tickets.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Broadway legend Idina Menzel brings her Take Me or Leave Me tour to the Gaillard Center Aug. 3, a one woman show featuring fan favorite songs from throughout Menzel\u2019s illustrious career \u2014 iconic hits from Wicked, Rent, Frozen, and newer music from her dance album, Drama Queen, released [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1235,"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":[80,82],"class_list":["post-1234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-80","tag-take-me-or-leave-me-tour"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IdinaMenzel_2023-104_B_IM_0045_04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-jU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234","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=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1236,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions\/1236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}