Idina Menzel says she’s proud of the tour that makes it to Phoenix Sunday, Sept. 3 for one final show.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m proud of the shape of the show, the musicality, the intimacy that we maintain even though it might be in a larger venue,” she says. “I\u2019m proud of the spontaneity. I feel like every city has gotten a show that\u2019s completely unique to them. I\u2019m not afraid to go off on some kind of tangent because a fan yells something out and it inspires something in me to talk about.”<\/p>\n
It’s a challenge, she says, to put this kind of tour together for the sort of artist\u00a0she has become, because of her\u00a0multi-faceted career.<\/p>\n
She owes her first success to Broadway, where she earned a Tony nomination for her role in \u201cRent\u201d in 1996 and won Best Actress in a Musical eight years later for her work in \u201cWicked.”<\/p>\n
And she hit the mainstream hard with “Frozen,” the Disney smash in which she voiced the character Queen Elsa and went eight-times-platinum with the soaring ballad “Let It Go.”<\/p>\n
But at her core, she’s more about just jamming with her bandmates, something she’s been doing since before she got that role in “Rent.”<\/p>\n
“Sometimes I worry,” she says, “about bringing it all together. But I\u2019m starting to worry less because I see that it\u2019s all part of my story. There might be a song from a Broadway show, a song from a movie, a rock-song cover tune that I\u2019ve always wanted to do. But they all speak to a time in my life that\u2019s true to me. So that\u2019s sort of the common denominator that keeps it all on the same page.”<\/p>\n
Here’s Menzel on touring, “Frozen 2” and what her seven-year-old thinks of his mother reprising the biggest role of her career (“He doesn’t give a s–t,” she reports with a laugh).<\/p>\n
Question: You\u2019ve added two string players on this tour.<\/strong><\/p>\n Answer: <\/strong>The past couple tours, I\u2019ve had an orchestra with me. The difference is that usually you pick up a bunch of musicians in each city, and on this tour, I decided to have strings as part of the band, so we all travel together and we\u2019re not strangers. We know each other.<\/p>\n I have an amazing violinist and cellist and a background singer who is also an acoustic guitarist and percussionist. All three of them are women, which I love having all that girl power. And then the other guys are guys I\u2019ve had on the road with me for years. So it\u2019s been a really good vibe.<\/p>\n Q: Are you doing much from the album you released last year on this tour?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> I do a couple songs from that, which has been exciting to see the mouths moving along in the audience and people actually singing along. That\u2019s always a really rewarding feeling. But I have songs from the newest album and then songs from the shows that I\u2019ve been in that you would probably expect me to do. I have some covers that I\u2019m doing that are a lot of fun and little surprises sprinkled in.<\/p>\n Q: The last time you toured, I know you were covering Radiohead, doing \u201cCreep.\u201d And when I interviewed you last, you said that was meant to offset the more empowering stuff in the set.<\/strong><\/p>\n A: <\/strong>(Laughs). Yeah, that\u2019s my angry song. I\u2019m not doing Radiohead again but I have that part of me. It\u2019s rare. And it\u2019s rare on this latest album, even though I\u2019d go in there like \u201cI\u2019m getting a divorce and I want to write about this and that.\u201d And then the amazing writers would always find a way to put this optimistic, hopeful angle on the song.<\/p>\n And I\u2019d be like, \u201cAll right, fine. This is a great song. But I didn\u2019t want to do that. I wanted to write something angry.\u201d (Laughs). I think it\u2019s more interesting for people to see someone struggling and fighting through something but coming out the other side.<\/p>\n I guess that\u2019s just who I am and I have to stop fighting it so much. If that\u2019s what happens when I\u2019m in a room writing music with people, then it is what it is.<\/p>\n Q: You do seem like someone people turn to for those types of songs.<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> I guess the characters I\u2019ve played, the projects I\u2019ve been in, there\u2019s a pattern in a lot of the work that I\u2019ve been lucky to be part of.<\/p>\n And I\u2019m not sure if I attract it to me or I\u2019m attracted to it or it\u2019s all just coincidence but for whatever reason, there\u2019s this really beautiful group of characters, songs, whatever it is, these women who are super-powerful and strong and yet risk being alienated and misunderstood in their world.<\/p>\n And even though the projects I\u2019ve been in attract such a young audience, there\u2019s a staying power to them because the heart of them are these women and what we all have as women, whether it\u2019s our young girl self or our grownup self where we\u2019re just really struggling to reconcile this part of us and the part of us that doesn\u2019t want to alienate anyone, that wants to fit in.<\/p>\n Q: You recently stepped into Bette Midler\u2019s role in a remake of \u201cBeaches.\u201d What was that experience like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> That was a pretty complicated experience because it\u2019s not something I like to do often, some kind of remake or revival or set myself up for failure by putting myself in an iconic role that\u2019s already been created. So it was difficult. But I really enjoyed the TV aspect. I don\u2019t get to do that as often as theater, so I got to exercise those muscles.<\/p>\n And I also liked modernizing the story\u00a0so that we as women could see where we have come in those 20 years because a lot of it is about managing career and family and passions, and compromising our desires in our lives. And\u00a0 these two women sort of having that friendship and figuring that out and having that conversation. So that was why it felt important to do for me.<\/p>\n Q: You also have \u201cFrozen 2\u201d coming up. Have you started that yet?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> No, I haven\u2019t. I\u2019ll start that when the tour is over in a couple weeks. And then I\u2019ll start getting in the studio. Honestly, they haven\u2019t even sent me a script. They\u2019re keeping everything really close to the vest.<\/p>\n It\u2019s that kind of thing, you get in, you do a little work, they start storyboarding and getting the images up. Then they\u2019ll come in a couple weeks later, they\u2019ll do some more, change it around, add a song. It\u2019s a very incremental process, which I love. So I\u2019m looking forward getting back in there with that \u201cFrozen\u201d family and just doing our thing.<\/p>\n Q: Is your son excited about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: <\/strong>Ummm (laughs) he doesn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n Q: He doesn\u2019t care?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: <\/strong>No, he doesn\u2019t give a s\u2014t. (laughs) Although I will say, I brought him on tour with me this summer and this age for him has been much better than in the past. He\u2019s really gotten a lot more out of touring with Mommy. I think he realizes that I\u2019m actually kind of cool. He walks me to the stage every night and gives me a hug and a kiss and wishes me good luck.<\/p>\n He comes to soundcheck and dribbles and practices his ball handling to the beat. And he\u2019s best friends with the band. It just seems like this age has given him more of an appreciation for what\u2019s going on and how cool it is to ride in a tour bus with Mommy for the summer. But, as far as \u201cFrozen,\u201d I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve won him over yet on that one. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n Q: What would you say the best part of touring is for you at this point?<\/strong><\/p>\n A:<\/strong> The jamming with my band. The being so connected and having done so many shows that we have that freedom to just kind of relax and just have fun and listen to each other and go new places and be spontaneous. It\u2019s where I come from, really.<\/p>\n Ever since I was a teenager, I\u2019ve been in bands, whether it be wedding bands or rock bands, but people don\u2019t always realize that about me because they always think of the theater thing first. But my favorite part of performing is the give and take, the connection with people that I\u2019m on stage with, the improvisational aspect of it, because that\u2019s what keeps you fresh.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why I can do eight shows a week or 50 shows a summer and not get tired of it, because it\u2019s all about being in the moment and listening for a nuance, a new lick that the guitar player is playing, a new chord on the piano that my keyboard player might decide to throw in that inspires me to sing something a little bit differently. It\u2019s the bond that I have with my friends.<\/p>\n And because I\u2019m so comfortable with them, that allows to be really comfortable with the audience and make a lot of jokes and hang out and just make it feel really intimate and new in every city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Idina Menzel says she’s proud of the tour that makes it to Phoenix Sunday, Sept. 3 for one final show. “I\u2019m proud of the shape of the show, the musicality, the intimacy that we maintain even though it might be in a larger venue,” she says. “I\u2019m proud […]<\/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_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":[45],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-45"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-aD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","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=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}