Idina Menzel is back on Broadway in a new musical — and for the Tony-winning actor, now starring in “Redwood,” it’s exactly the kind of work she loves most.
Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:
“I think my proudest moments in my career have been with original musicals,” said Menzel, who starred in the original cast of “Rent” and won a Tony for originating the role of Elphaba in “Wicked.” Speaking on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety‘s theater podcast, Menzel continued, “I know that original musicals are a huge risk, and it takes a lot of patience and belief when you start from a kernel of something and get it all the way to Broadway.”
The seed of the idea for “Redwood” began with Menzel, who conceived the piece with the director, book writer and co-lyricist Tina Landau. The two of them enlisted composer and Broadway newcomer Kate Diaz to help them tell the story of Jessie, a woman who flees her life on the east coast — and the tragedy that haunts her — to find healing among the redwood trees of northern California.
“Working with Kate has really allowed me to explore these different parts of my voice, and they’re not all acrobatic,” she said. “It’s more about how best to tell a story, what part of my voice will connect to people and tell that story. It doesn’t all have to be high notes. Not to say that I’m not singing some incredibly challenging stuff! But it’s not just about, like, long notes and putting the vibrato here. It’s about: How can I connect with you as deeply as possible?”
“Redwood,” which opened on Broadway in February, comes at a time when both “Rent” and “Wicked,” two properties closely associated with Menzel, have circled back into the zeitgeist. “Wicked,” of course, inspired the movie that became an award-winning, worldwide hit over the holidays (and in which Menzel has a cameo), while this spring in New York, some of the earliest work of Jonathan Larson, the late creator of “Rent,” got an Off Broadway showcase in “The Jonathan Larson Project.”
“It’s emotional for me,” Menzel said when asked about how “Wicked” and “Rent” influenced her life and career. “There’s a sense of gratitude. These projects have not just been jobs. They’ve changed me and helped me to be the person that I am right now. They are zeitgeist projects that have resonated with audiences in a way that has been everlasting, and so there’s just such a pride I have about being part of them.”
The whole experience of “Rent,” and the sudden loss of Larson just as his show was about to make its Off Broadway premiere, “really laid down a very specific foundation and set a principle to me, for what was important in this career I was choosing and what really matters,” she added.
Also, on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Mezel discusses her favorite part of “Redwood” and takes listeners on a virtual tour of her dressing room, which is decorated not only with redwood wallpaper but also an actual sapling of a redwood tree.
“I have a baby redwood!” she revealed. “It can be in its little pot for two or three years before you have to plant it. But I’m gonna get her out of there much sooner.”
To hear the entire conversation, listen at the link above or download and subscribe to “Stagecraft” on podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the Broadway Podcast Network. New episodes of “Stagecraft” are released every other week.
