Hitting the road
The star on her soaring career, motherhood and going on the road
Menzel will take her show, and her son, on tour
On May 30, Idina Menzel kicks off a world tour in Seoul and follows that concert with four dates in three cities in Japan.
It’s the first time she has performed in either country, Menzel says. “When you get to do something and a lot of people become familiar with it, you can suddenly sell tickets in new territories.”
For the Tony Award-winning stage and screen veteran, that something was Frozen, the hit 2013 Disney animated film that cast Menzel as the voice of a certain steely but sensitive ice queen. Her performance of Elsa’s signature song, Let It Go, made Menzel’s siren-like belt inescapable well into last year.
Grabbing coffee in a Midtown restaurant before a recent event for her charity, A BroaderWay, Menzel, 43, observes that her career has had “highs and lows. But each phase of my life, you know, has opened new doors.”
Twenty years ago she was cast in Rent, the smash musical that would earn the singer/actress her first Tony nomination. “It was my first professional gig out of wedding singing. I was like, ‘I’m done — I’ve made it.’ ” It was her performance in 2003’s Wicked — as the witch Elphaba, a feisty superheroine who clearly inspired Elsa — that earned Menzel Broadway’s biggest prize and made her one of theater’s biggest stars.
A few film roles followed, as did albums that didn’t fare spectacularly well. In 2009, Menzel and then-husband Taye Diggs welcomed a son, Walker, which changed her perspective: “Having a child gives you something outside yourself to think about, so it wasn’t all about the ambition anymore.” (Menzel and Diggs fi- nalized their divorce in December and share custody of Walker.)
Then “a funny thing happened: When the edge was off, and I finally started relaxing into who I was and where I was in my life, this amazing film happened, and suddenly this song was everywhere.” Menzel also gives credit to TV’s Glee, which featured her as vocal coach Shelby Corcoran beginning in 2010.
Menzel’s tour — which lands in the USA July 7, in Richmond, Va. — follows her return to Broadway in the musical If/Then, which ended a yearlong run in March. She acknowledges life on the road can be “strenuous” but says, “I think Broadway’s probably harder, because when I’m doing my own concerts it’s my own material. I can do it at my own pace; I can take a break and talk to the audience.”
She’s bringing her son along “so that he can see that life is much bigger than his world.” Walker, 5, has accompanied her outside the country before. Menzel recalls a London concert “where I was singing a cappella, and I could hear him crying offstage.” She looked over and spotted him, in his nanny’s arms, and brought him out.
“I don’t normally like to bring him in front of people, to exploit him in that way,” Menzel says. “But I held him and he buried his head in my shoulder, and I sang the song that way. That was the ultimate multitasking.”
Menzel says she has no plans set in stone after the tour. There’s a possible TV show, and Disney has not yet announced casting for
Frozen 2.
“I’d like to do some films if possible,” she says, “but I’ll always come back to theater.
“I’m still a wedding singer at heart — I’m happy to just have a gig once in a while. I’m doing what I love and making a living at it, which is all I ever wanted.”
“I’m still a wedding singer at heart — I’m happy to just have a gig once in a while. I’m doing what I love ... which is all I ever wanted.”