STUDIO CITY, Calif.\u2014This is how we can tell that the actress and singer Idina Menzel has put at least a little bit of her New York roots behind her: \u201cI live right up the street, and of course, I drove here,\u201d Ms. Menzel said, stepping out of her sports-utility vehicle in workout clothes, in preparation for a hike near the house she shares with her husband, the actor Taye Diggs, and their 17-month-old son, Walker.<\/p>\n
\u201cMostly I just do yoga,\u201d Ms. Menzel said as she started up the hill. \u201cBut since I live so close I feel like I should know this hike. So, I\u2019m using you as a guinea pig.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only recently that Ms. Menzel and Mr. Diggs (who is on the hit ABC show \u201cPrivate Practice\u201d) bit the bullet and bought a house in Los Angeles. They did it \u201ckicking and screaming,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we thought with the baby coming, let\u2019s do it right. I don\u2019t want to decorate a house we\u2019re renting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m kind of a homebody,\u201d she went on. \u201cBut having a baby gets me out of the house. At least I want him to be social. I want him to have a bright happy start in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is not as if the pair, who met during the original production of \u201cRent,\u201d have left Manhattan behind. They still keep an apartment there, and on Saturday, Ms. Menzel will perform with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall. Marvin Hamlisch conducts. (On Thursday, she will perform in Red Bank.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never sung with the New York Philharmonic before and it\u2019s a moment I\u2019d like to be in my body for,\u201d Ms. Menzel said, as the mountain path leveled off. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be so nervous that I can\u2019t enjoy it.\u201d She\u2019s not sure yet whether or not Walker will be there to watch her. \u201cIf he\u2019s still on L.A. time, he can stay up. It\u2019s always a toss-up: is he going to be a cooler kid because he meets all these cool people in these far-flung situations and his sleeping is off, or is it better for him to stay in one place?\u201d<\/p>\n
To that end, Ms. Menzel, who won a Tony for her role as Elphaba in the musical \u201cWicked\u201d and did a cameo on \u201cGlee\u201d this season, has tried to keep her family life as steady as possible. \u201cLast weekend, I put Walker to bed, got on a red eye, went to St. Louis, sang with the orchestra, watched the Jets in the airport lounge, and then I was back in time to have missed only one day of his life,\u201d Ms. Menzel explained. \u201cI like the tempo of having quality time and then running out to do a show and then I\u2019m back. \u201d<\/p>\n
In another short uphill section of the hike, Ms. Menzel, who famously got her start as a wedding singer, said most of her concert includes songs from \u201cWicked,\u201d \u201cRent,\u201d and a few old standards from Cole Porter.<\/p>\n
What about the dance version of \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d her anthem from \u201cWicked\u201d that was a small club hit a few years ago?
\n\u201cThat would freak everyone out, don\u2019t you think?\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s bad enough I do \u2018Pokerface\u2019 by Lady Gaga, because I sang it on \u2018Glee.\u2019 With an orchestra we have fun with it. I assume they would rather be doing Beethoven, but what are you going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes she\u2019ll Skype with her voice teacher back in New York. Otherwise, she tends to practice with her computer and a microphone in a studio in the Valley to build up the stamina to \u201creach that stupidly ridiculous key that I put \u2018Defying Gravity\u2019 in myself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m competitive with myself, and I don\u2019t want to take that key down. It\u2019s like karaoke Idina.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since Ms. Menzel left \u201cWicked,\u201d there have been 10 Elphabas and 24 understudies. In that time, she has been developing a nonprofit theater camp for city children that will involve the composer Jeanine Tesori. While looking for a new original musical to do, she has turned down many a Broadway show. \u201cThere have been a bunch that didn\u2019t feel like me,\u201d she said. \u201cI worry because I\u2019d like to get back there, and I don\u2019t want people to forget about me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rumors she will star in revivals of \u201cEvita\u201d and \u201cFunny Girl\u201d are unfounded, she said. \u201cPeople would love to hear \u2018Funny Girl\u2019 but anyone who attempted it is pretty doomed. There\u2019s a reason no one does it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has been developing a musical television show with the producer of \u201cSamantha Who?\u201d and ABC that would cast her as a working mother with Broadway dreams, but a pilot hasn\u2019t yet been ordered. \u201cWho knows with these things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say you can see George Clooney\u2019s house from here,\u201d Ms. Menzel said, as the canyon\u2019s path took a turn into a wide expanse. \u201cDo you think it\u2019s that one? Why doesn\u2019t it say George Clooney\u2019s house on it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, the hike ended up back on a cul-de-sac and at Ms. Menzel\u2019s SUV. \u201cMy first hike in six months,\u201d she said. \u201cWell that didn\u2019t kill us. My butt doesn\u2019t hurt too much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STUDIO CITY, Calif.\u2014This is how we can tell that the actress and singer Idina Menzel has put at least a little bit of her New York roots behind her: \u201cI live right up the street, and of course, I drove here,\u201d Ms. Menzel said, stepping out of her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[33,12,8],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-33","tag-barefoot-at-the-symphony","tag-family-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-3g","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}