{"id":805,"date":"2020-03-29T18:36:33","date_gmt":"2020-03-29T18:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/?p=805"},"modified":"2020-03-29T18:36:33","modified_gmt":"2020-03-29T18:36:33","slug":"idina-menzel-to-perform-nyc-karaoke-concert-with-undercover-boss-mentees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/idina-menzel-to-perform-nyc-karaoke-concert-with-undercover-boss-mentees\/","title":{"rendered":"Idina Menzel to perform NYC karaoke concert with \u2018Undercover Boss\u2019 mentees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Broadway star will return to the NYC stage Monday to host a karaoke benefit concert.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Balancing her new \u201cUndercover Boss\u201d persona, Helen Gold, and rehearsals for Off-Broadway\u2019s \u201cSkintight,\u201d Tony-winner Idina Menzel still manages to give back to her New York roots.<\/p>\n

The Broadway star will return to the NYC stage Monday to host a karaoke benefit concert that\u2019ll help provide funds for young girls in the city and beyond to partake in theater, dance and art classes through her Camp BroaderWay<\/a> charity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was younger, I was lucky enough to go away to camp in the summers and I found it to be a real sanctuary, a place to escape my everyday life,\u201d Menzel, who grew up on Long Island, says while on a quick break from rehearsals of the upcoming \u201cSkintight\u201d production.<\/p>\n

Menzel\u2019s A BroaderWay Foundation was founded in 2010 with her then-husband, actor Taye Diggs. Since then, it has helped give hundreds of girls from underserved communities an outlet of artistic expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve gotten older, I realized how important it is that young women really have a place to find their true voice, and how the arts helped me mind my voice,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

Menzel\u2019s sleepaway camp, based in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, started with 30 New York City-based high schoolers in 2011 and has grown to include more than 100 enrollees. A total of 165 New Yorkers have benefited from the program to date. Aside from the traditional campfire fun you\u2019d expect, Menzel\u2019s charity program gives the girls the chance to perform on a New York City stage at the end of each summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have two years [of campers] who have graduated already and they\u2019re coming back as counselors,\u201d Menzel explains. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing them go to college and we\u2019re trying to help them prepare for that, so there\u2019s obviously so much support we need in order to keep it going.\u201d<\/p>\n

To raise funds to pay for the camp\u2019s programs and scholarships, Menzel will host Monday\u2019s charity karaoke concert at the PlayStation Theater from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. She\u2019ll be joined by fellow Broadway stars, including cast members of \u201cThe Lion King,\u201d \u201cFrozen,\u201d \u201cSpongeBob SquarePants\u201d and \u201cHello, Dolly!\u201d<\/p>\n

The freestyle, open-to-the-public concert will also feature performances by a few rising stars Menzel befriended while filming her upcoming episode of \u201cUndercover Boss: Celebrity Edition,\u201d airing Friday at 8 p.m. on CBS.<\/p>\n

Menzel donned a blond disguise to pass as Helen Gold, a dental receptionist from Louisville, Colorado, who wants to break into the theater business while filming the episode. She shadows women who are chasing a similar dream and have no idea they\u2019re coaching a Tony winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I got over sort of deceiving these young women I was discovering, I had a hard time deceiving them, but once I realized how great it was going to be, and the wonderful gift that \u2018Undercover Boss\u2019 was going to give them, then I felt better about it. It was a great experience. I\u2019m still talking to the girls now and actually, two of them will perform at the fundraiser.\u201d<\/p>\n

The episode also sees Menzel undergo a significant physical facial transformation, slip into a chicken suit and try to disguise her voice while singing \u201cpoorly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chicken suit was easy!\u201d she laughs. \u201cIt was the prosthetics that I got into every morning for three hours . . . the chicken suit was just like PJs, but every morning, I sat in the chair and they amped up my chin and my nose.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for trying to hide her voice, the actress says she had a little New York-themed inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was worried about getting discovered, but it was a blast,\u201d she says. \u201cI did a little bit of the \u2018Saturday Night Live\u2019 The Culps sketch with Ana Gasteyer. I kind of stole it from that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Broadway star will return to the NYC stage Monday to host a karaoke benefit concert. Balancing her new \u201cUndercover Boss\u201d persona, Helen Gold, and rehearsals for Off-Broadway\u2019s \u201cSkintight,\u201d Tony-winner Idina Menzel still manages to give back to her New York roots. The Broadway star will return to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":806,"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":[46,17,52],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-46","tag-a-broader-way","tag-undercover-boss"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/image-33.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-cZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","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=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}