As a wedding singer in the 1980s, Idina Menzel came up with a crowd-pleasing formula: trot out a broad range of familiar songs, keep the party moving and the banter light.<\/p>\n
But the actress, who has since won a Tony Award for \u201cWicked\u201d on Broadway and starred in stage and movie versions of \u201cRent\u201d and on Fox\u2019s hit comedy \u201cGlee,\u201d had to rein in her now-famous big voice. She was supposed to be background music in those days, after all, not the main attraction.<\/p>\n
Menzel smiled recently when she thought about that time, and not just because she fibbed about her age to land jobs around her native Long Island, N.Y. (She was 15 when she started, but told her band mates she was 18). The experience was great, if cheesy, she said, of the time when she moved from the music of the Police to Motown to Cole Porter and to the bossa nova. She wanted to be a rock star then, but out of necessity she became more of an entertainment jack-of-all-trades. As it turns out, that\u2019s worked in her favor.<\/p>\n
In a national tour she launched earlier this year, Menzel\u2019s playing cabaret-style concerts with full orchestras, singing Broadway show tunes, original songs she wrote for her most recent CD, \u201cI Stand,\u201d and pop standards. There\u2019s also ad-libbed patter between songs but, Menzel promises, \u201cno shtick \u2014 I think I\u2019ll have a lifelong aversion to that from all those weddings and bar mitzvahs.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a first-of-its-kind collaboration for Menzel, working with the likes of composer and conductor Marvin Hamlisch, who called her \u201csolid as a rock,\u201d the Boston Pops and the National Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n
For a performance Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, Menzel plans an eclectic lineup where her rendition of Lady Gaga\u2019s \u201cPoker Face\u201d could share the stage with her signature song, \u201cDefying Gravity,\u201d from \u201cWicked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the typical orchestra show because there\u2019s something idiosyncratic about it,\u201d Menzel said over herbal tea on a recent chilly morning at Aroma Caf\u00e9 in Studio City, near where she and her actor husband, Taye Diggs, recently bought a house. \u201cI\u2019m trying to corral some of my disparate groups of fans and bring them together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much to her delight, she\u2019s no longer competing with wedding toasts and bridezillas and, as the headliner, can call the shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been picking arrangements that enhance my voice because I don\u2019t have to tone it down in this setting \u2014 just the opposite,\u201d she said. \u201cIt feels great.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s had to do a little self-editing, though, trading her favored jeans and motorcycle boots for stilettos and evening gowns and making sure her on-stage stories are family friendly. \u201cWicked\u201d director Joe Mantello called Menzel \u201cdisarmingly honest,\u201d which, the singer said, sometimes comes out in candid not-safe-for-the-kids language.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not changing who I am, but I\u2019m respectful because I\u2019m in these amazing halls with a diverse audience,\u201d she said. \u201cI still want to be as authentic as I can be \u2014 it\u2019s what people expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel\u2019s tour shows how influential she\u2019s become as a performer, said Chris Columbus, who directed the feature film \u201cRent.\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s created a bridge between rock, pop, soul and Broadway,\u201d he said, as Barbra Streisand did before her. \u201cAnd she has an emotional power that\u2019s astounding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart called her a \u201cphenomenon\u201d among musical theater performers, inspiring rock star-like devotion from her fans. \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to see a Broadway star surrounded by enthusiastic teenagers, all gleefully serenading her with her own hit songs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mantello, who worked with Menzel during \u201cWicked\u2019s\u201d three-year Broadway run and again for the West End production of the show in London, hasn\u2019t seen her tour yet but thinks the milieu suits her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs she\u2019s become more and more sophisticated as a performer, she hasn\u2019t lost what makes her unique,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s so charming and real and vulnerable, and this is a great platform for people to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s talk of culling bits of the orchestra shows into a PBS special, but details are still fluid, and Menzel continues searching for her next original Broadway role. (No revivals, she said.) She, Diggs and their 14-month-old son, Walker, split their time between Los Angeles and New York, with the baby already on preschool waiting lists on both coasts to accommodate his parents\u2019 multimedia careers.<\/p>\n
Diggs costars on ABC\u2019s \u201cPrivate Practice,\u201d in which Menzel has had guest roles, and he just sold an adoption-themed ensemble drama to the network. Menzel, meanwhile, is mulling a scripted TV idea loosely based on her life. She doesn\u2019t know if she\u2019ll appear again on \u201cGlee,\u201d where she played Lea Michele\u2019s long-lost mother and coach of rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline, but she\u2019s open to the possibility. Producers have said she\u2019ll likely return.<\/p>\n
Balancing the personal and professional since her son was born has been a challenge, Menzel said, but she and Diggs \u201cfeel more inspired than ever,\u201d though she admits they\u2019re usually sleep deprived.<\/p>\n
Her latest endeavor probably won\u2019t help in that department. Menzel has started a nonprofit foundation called A Broader Way that plans to launch a performing arts summer camp for underprivileged kids.<\/p>\n
The idea came to her after she saw the response from youngsters, especially girls, to her outcast character, Elphaba, in \u201cWicked,\u201d and it\u2019s been solidified by the mainstream success of the cast of \u201cGlee.\u201d She wants to create an environment where kids can express themselves through art, dance and music.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe camp will celebrate these kids that don\u2019t fit into the perfect mold of what\u2019s popular,\u201d she said. \u201cHopefully they\u2019ll understand that their talent makes them cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a wedding singer in the 1980s, Idina Menzel came up with a crowd-pleasing formula: trot out a broad range of familiar songs, keep the party moving and the banter light. But the actress, who has since won a Tony Award for \u201cWicked\u201d on Broadway and starred in […]<\/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":[29,17,12,20],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-29","tag-a-broader-way","tag-barefoot-at-the-symphony","tag-i-stand"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-dq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","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=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}