{"id":635,"date":"2018-07-04T15:46:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T15:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=635"},"modified":"2018-07-04T17:55:50","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T17:55:50","slug":"talking-to-idina-menzel-about-her-concert-her-sister-and-of-course-let-it-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/talking-to-idina-menzel-about-her-concert-her-sister-and-of-course-let-it-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking to Idina Menzel about her concert, her sister and, of course, ‘Let It Go’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Idina Menzel mooed as the performance artist Maureen in the original production of \u201cRent\u201d in 1996 and, ever since, Broadway audiences have mooed back.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Over the past decades, Menzel has won over everyone from musical theater nerds to Tony voters to princess wannabes, as Maureen with her audience-participation bit about cows, defying gravity as the green-girl Elphaba in the Broadway musical \u201cWicked\u201d and solidifying the empowerment anthem \u201cLet It Go\u201d as a smash hit as the voice of snow queen Elsa in Disney\u2019s 2013 movie \u201cFrozen.\u201d She has appeared on Fox\u2019s \u201cGlee\u201d and went back to Broadway in the Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey musical \u201cIf\/Then,\u201d garnering another Tony nomination. Outside of her stage and screen reign, Menzel has released five studios albums. She sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl and in front of Barack and Michelle Obama at the White House. She survived \u201cAdele Dazeem.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s next? And what\u2019s left to do?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new memoir authored by Menzel\u2019s younger sister, Cara Mentzel, coming out this fall (\u201cVoice Lessons: A Sisters Story,\u201d St. Martin’s Press) and \u201cFrozen 2\u201d set for 2019. And Saturday, the diva will bring her global tour, her band and her son, Walker, to Chicago, for a show aimed to please the countless fans Menzel\u2019s picked up along the way \u2014 everyone from aging Rentheads to toddlers in tiaras.<\/p>\n

The Tribune talked to Menzel about her ongoing success and remaining aspirations before her Chicago Theatre concert. The following interview is edited and condensed.<\/p>\n

Q: What can fans expect from the concert? Will it be a mix of songs from your albums and Broadway hits?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Yep, you said it. I like to say it\u2019s an eclectic set list. Definitely songs people would expect. I like to stay fresh and do some new arrangements of them, although I’m sensitive to not overdoing that. But there’s a few new arrangements I really like. And there’s some music from the new album. And some surprise covers.<\/p>\n

Q: And there will be \u201cFrozen,\u201d I imagine. Do you ever get tired of singing \u201cLet It Go\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I love to sing it. I don\u2019t, honestly. Because I involve the kids when I do it, so every night it\u2019s different. And every night I am reminded of how it\u2019s reached and connected and resonated with young people and how important it is. And that makes me really proud \u2014 that I have that in my career, that I have a song and a character and a movie that is so powerful and really changes people.<\/p>\n

Q: Does your son like the song? Or \u201cFrozen?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: (Laughs.) My son\u2019s got a love-hate relationship with it, I think. If you’d ask him, he’d say he’s not a fan. I’ve done some analysis, and I think anything related to \u201cFrozen\u201d is \u201cmom\u2019s work.\u201d And it has given thousands of people permission to say they know his mom, and I think that bothers him; I\u2019m his mom, and he wants me to himself. But he’s starting to come out and watch. I think he secretly enjoys the songs. \u2026 He just won\u2019t tell me.<\/p>\n

Q: How do you navigate audiences filled with everyone from kids to longtime fans?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: That\u2019s my biggest challenge these days. Just trying to be true to myself with the understanding that I have a vast demographic. And I think I’m doing a really good job of navigating that. \u2026 I\u2019m a woman in her 40s. I have to be myself. But I don’t want to offend anybody.<\/p>\n

Q: What\u2019s your favorite song in the set list? Or a moment you really look forward to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Those moments change every night, to be honest with you, depending on how I\u2019m feeling and what\u2019s going on in my life. That\u2019s what I love about music. Songs reflect how you feel and your association with them that can change depending on how you’re feeling that particular day. So that\u2019s hard to answer. I have an acoustic little miniset that I really like where I do something from \u201cWicked\u201d on guitar.<\/p>\n

Q: Outside of tour news, it was recently announced that your sister wrote a book about your relationship. How involved were you in that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I was super involved. It was my idea. She\u2019s always been a great writer. And I was asked to write a book, a memoir, and I really had no interest at all in writing about myself. So she had often written about the two of us and about our lives and our childhood and our sisterhood, and we felt like there was a lot more story there, a bigger story that we can tell, with that angle. So I\u2019m excited. She wrote a beautiful, funny, poignant book from the perspective of a little sister trying to find her voice with a sister who had a huge voice and probably overshadowed her. \u2026 It uses milestones in our lives to sort of explore how similar and different we were at the time and how we learned from each other through those experiences.<\/p>\n

Q: Is there any role that could get you back to Broadway?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I\u2019m interested in doing new work. I go back every couple months and do workshops for new writers and read their work aloud so they can develop it. And that\u2019s where my heart is, developing a new piece and being a part of it. And helping young writers and composers do their thing and make original work.<\/p>\n

Q: Whose work are you into right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I recently worked with Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey. I\u2019m a huge fan of theirs. Jason Robert Brown. I\u2019ve never gotten to work with him, but he\u2019s awesome. I\u2019d love to work with him. There\u2019s so many.<\/p>\n

A: What else do you want to accomplish?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty content. I feel good about where things are. I\u2019m just going to keep trying to be part of new material and writing my music. And I would love to get more film work or TV work where I can really be on the set with some great accomplished actors so I can really learn from them.<\/p>\n

Q: Who would you want to work with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: For me, it’s legends like Meryl Streep or Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet.<\/p>\n

Q: Anything else you want to fit in during your time in Chicago?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I like to do my yoga. I probably would just love to take my son to a big park. Maybe some hoops for him. I\u2019m excited to come back to Chicago. We had a great time two years ago. The fans were incredible. We\u2019ll try to satisfy everyone\u2019s requests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idina Menzel mooed as the performance artist Maureen in the original production of \u201cRent\u201d in 1996 and, ever since, Broadway audiences have mooed back. Over the past decades, Menzel has won over everyone from musical theater nerds to Tony voters to princess wannabes, as Maureen with her audience-participation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[45],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-45"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-af","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","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=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}