Summer camp was always a magical time for future Broadway star Idina Menzel. \u201cI loved being able to reinvent myself during the summer, and not be judged by the same group of kids I saw in school,\u201d she says. So when she grew up and found success as an artist, Menzel regularly talked about finding a way to make that opportunity available to other girls. Fortunately, she talked about it with her college pal Heather Zuckerman, a \u201ctype-A business person,\u201d who eventually said, \u201cI\u2019m done talking about this, let\u2019s do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fast forward to 2010, and the inaugural summer camp of A Broader Way, which Menzel founded with her husband, Taye Diggs, (from whom she is separated). The organization takes a small group of girls from urban communities out to the Berkshires and gives them a place to express themselves, and learn self-confidence through performance. Menzel and other stage veterans are also there with the girls during the camp\u2019s 10-day program, working on songs, poems, writing and stagecraft.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a beautiful intimacy about the camp,\u201d she says. \u201cThe counselors perform that first night, to show the girls they can make themselves vulnerable.\u201d And by the end of the 10 days, the campers themselves are prepared for a performance staged for their parents.<\/p>\n
This is not a performing arts camp; Menzel says they take everyone who auditions. For now, finances mean the group still has to remain small \u2014 they started with 30 girls and have worked up to just about double that, with a lot of repeat campers. But there are big plans to hopefully expand to other cities in the coming years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about using the arts to help girls find their own voice,\u201d says Menzel. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of young women who don\u2019t know how to use their voice literally and figuratively. These girls get to be the authors of their own life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summer camp was always a magical time for future Broadway star Idina Menzel. \u201cI loved being able to reinvent myself during the summer, and not be judged by the same group of kids I saw in school,\u201d she says. So when she grew up and found success as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":422,"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":[9],"tags":[42,17],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-42","tag-a-broader-way"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/powerofwomen.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-6L","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}