Performer content as successes continue
In 1996, as the performance artist Maureen in the original production of “Rent,” Idina Menzel mooed — and Broadway audiences have mooed back ever since.
During recent decades, Menzel has won over everyone from musical-theater nerds to Tony voters and princess wannabes — first as Maureen with her audience-participation bit about cows; defying gravity as the green-girl Elphaba in the Broadway musical “Wicked;” and solidifying the empowerment anthem “Let It Go” as a smash hit as the voice of snow queen Elsa in the 2013 Disney movie “Frozen.”
She has appeared on Fox’s “Glee” and went back to Broadway in the Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey musical “If/Then,” garnering another Tony nomination in 2014.
Outside of her stage-andscreen reign, she has released five studios albums. She sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl in 2015 and performed at the White House Easter egg roll in 2016.
So, what’s next? There’s a new memoir (“Voice Lessons: A Sisters Story) written by Menzel’s younger sister, Cara Menzel, due in the fall from S. Martin’s Press, and “Frozen 2,” scheduled for release in 2019. She’s currently wrapping up a nationwide concert tour.
The 46-year-old Menzel — who has a 7-year-old son, Walker, with Taye Diggs, from whom she is divorced — talked recently about her continuing success and remaining aspirations.
Q: Do you ever get tired of singing “Let It Go”?
A: I love to sing it. I don’t, honestly. Because I involve
the kids when I do it, so every night it’s different. And every night, I am reminded of how it’s reached and connected and resonated with young people and how important it is. And that makes me really proud — 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.
Q: Does your son like the song? Or “Frozen?”
A: (Laughs.) My son’s 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 “Frozen” is “Mom’s work.” And it has given thousands of people permission to say they know his mom, and I think that bothers him; I’m his mom, and he wants me to himself. But he’s starting to come out and watch. I think he secretly enjoys the songs. ... He just won’t tell me.
Q: How do you navigate audiences filled with everyone from kids to longtime fans?
A: That’s 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. … I’m a woman in her 40s. I have to be myself. But I don’t want to offend anybody.
Q: Outside of tour news, it was recently announced that your sister wrote a book about your relationship. How involved were you in that?
A: I was super- involved. It was my idea. She’s 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’m 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. … 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.
Q: Is there any role that could get you back to Broadway?
A: I’m interested in doing new work. I go back every couple of months and do workshops for new writers and read their work aloud so they can develop it. And that’s 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.
Q: Whose work are you into right now?
A: I recently worked with Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey. I’m a huge fan of theirs. Jason Robert Brown — I’ve never gotten to work with him, but he’s awesome. I’d love to work with him. There are so many.
Q: What else do you want to accomplish?
A: I’m pretty content. I feel good about where things are. I’m 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.
Q: Whom would you want to work with?
A: For me, it’s legends like Meryl Streep or Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet.