Broadway star, TV and film actress, and singer Idina Menzel will perform at the Mesa Arts Center on Thursday, July 25, as part of her \u201cTake Me or Leave Me\u201d tour.<\/p>\n
Menzel is known for the unique mezzo-soprano, emotional voice she brings to her performances. She got her start as a wedding and bat mitzvah singer.<\/p>\n
During her early career as an actress, she originated the role of Maureen in \u201cRent\u201d on Broadway. She also played the character in the 2005 movie version. She later originated the role of the Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba in \u201cWicked\u201d on Broadway, which won her a Tony Award.<\/p>\n
Her resume includes appearances in or voiced characters in \u201cGlee,\u201d \u201cKissing Jessica Stein,\u201d \u201cYou Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,\u201d \u201cCinderella,\u201d \u201cRalph Breaks the Internet\u201d and \u201cHercules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel said during her performance in Mesa, fans will hear music from throughout her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can expect to see an intimate show, where I do a lot of my classic songs, but I always try to find a way to tell a story that relates to those songs and how they fit the timeline in my life,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cI\u2019m going to explore some new arrangements to songs and try some songs I\u2019ve always wanted to sing. \u2026 There will be some really funny stuff. I have some surprises for people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel said a lot of thought went into the songs she would do and the stories she would tell during her tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my favorite things to do is go on tour and do live performance,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m very open to spontaneity and fortuitous mistakes and getting to connect with my audience again. It\u2019s been several years since I\u2019ve been out on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
In August 2023, Menzel released her newest album, a disco record called \u201cDrama Queen.\u201d She plans to perform original music from this album during the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was an album that I was really proud of. \u2026 I felt like I wanted to give back that album to the LGBTQ community for always being so supportive of me from the very beginning of my career,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cSo, while this tour isn\u2019t going to be disco and dance, I am going to find ways to incorporate the songs into the show. They just might be arranged a little bit differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has found that organizing a tour can be challenging because of the wide range of genres she has performed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to make it feel cohesive,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cI used to think that maybe it was asking the audience to go in too many directions, but in the last 10, 15 years, I\u2019ve realized it doesn\u2019t quite matter what style the music is because it\u2019s all under the umbrella of me, my life, what I\u2019ve experienced and the characters I\u2019ve played. That\u2019s the common thread.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel said that many of her songs have new meaning to her now when she is performing them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll great songs evolve with the person, I think,\u201d she said. \u201cAt first maybe they are really connected to the character that is singing them, but then, the more and more you get to sing them, the more and more your life and experience informs how you interpret the songs. That\u2019s one of the things I love so much about live performance, is that depending on how you feel and what you\u2019re experiencing in your day, a song might surprise you. That\u2019s why, believe it or not, it doesn\u2019t get tiring singing the same songs all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she has gotten further into her career, Menzel has had a chance to choose roles that speak to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the beginning of your career, you don\u2019t necessary look for roles because you just want to work,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m fortunate enough to have landed roles that were so life-changing and affirming and taught me so much about myself. \u2026 But now, I just want roles that really challenge me as a performer, as an actress or as a singer and roles where I get to work with a great creative team, where I can really explore all facets of what I do. I\u2019m most proud of this wonderful collection of characters that all really speak to one trying to embrace who they are, their individuality, to not shy away from their own power.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has also had the chance to shape other roles in different ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I love about creating new characters \u2014 you find their voice literally and figuratively,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cI love playing with my voice, whether I\u2019m doing a speaking role or singing role. It\u2019s my instrument. I like exploring that. I get to do that now, and people trust me to go through that process and figure out what the best choices are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Broadway star, TV and film actress, and singer Idina Menzel will perform at the Mesa Arts Center on Thursday, July 25, as part of her \u201cTake Me or Leave Me\u201d tour. Menzel is known for the unique mezzo-soprano, emotional voice she brings to her performances. She got her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[80,82],"class_list":["post-1257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-80","tag-take-me-or-leave-me-tour"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/6674964d771ad.image_.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-kh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257","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=1257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1259,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions\/1259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}