The new Broadway musical Redwood aims high. Literally. Much of the show, which brings musical theater icon Idina Menzel back to Broadway for the first time in a decade, takes place hundreds of feet in the air, in the canopy of the redwood forest in Northern California. Conjuring […]
Idina Menzel’s return to Broadway after 10 years in an all-new musical is the very definition of a theatrical event. Add to that a thrilling, immersive production that takes audiences inside a canopy of ancient trees, paired with a gorgeous original score and a moving story of resilience, […]
Only the women who’ve played Elphaba and Glinda in the show’s two decades onstage understand why the roles are so taxing — and so rewarding, too. The graduates of Shiz University are making their alma mater proud. In the 21 years since “Wicked” opened in New York, 43 […]
Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth have found their way back to Oz. Broadway’s original witches make a surprise appearance in director Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked,” but not as Elphaba and Glinda. The duo, who originated the leading roles in 2003, sing a new verse in “One Short Day,” […]
Idina Menzel, Ana Gasteyer and others open up on the pleasures and perils of playing the iconic “Wicked” character eight times a week. There may be no more spellbinding protagonist in contemporary musical theater than Elphaba Thropp, that green-skinned wallflower with a penchant for soaring over Oz and […]
Idina Menzel says that when the musical “Rent,” in which she played the flirty, bisexual performance artist Maureen, was making its surprising leap to prominence in the mid-1990s, journalists tended to overplay the similarities between the fresh-faced cast and the young East Village bohemians they were representing onstage. […]
Defying the Oz It’s ironic that Idina Menzel’s first line of dialogue in a Broadway show was “Which way to the stage?” More than eight years after her debut in Rent, this born performer shows no signs of needing directions. Menzel, a Long Island native who grew up dreaming […]
A few days before Halloween, Idina Menzel found herself 200 feet in the air, sitting in the canopy of a redwood forest. Outfitted in a bulky safety harness, puffer vest, climbing gloves and a bright red helmet, the voice of Elphaba and Elsa couldn’t help but break into […]
There’s a late-’80s episode of The Golden Girls where Blanche and Rose befriend two teenagers as part of the “Be a Pal” program. The young ladies want to go to a movie and Rose, bubbly as always, suggests a few options: “We can go see Oliver & Company. […]
It’s weird to be looked up to by little girls,” says Idina Menzel. We’re sitting at a cafeteria table in the cavernous brass-and-chrome lobby of the Public Theater. It’s the week before previews for her latest musical vehicle, Michael John LaChuisa’s See What I Wanna See, and Menzel […]
EIGHT times a week, Idina Menzel, who plays the witch Elphaba in the Broadway musical ”Wicked” at the Gershwin Theater, covers her face, hands and neck with green makeup, then puts on a matching bodysuit so that she is the color of a snow pea from head to […]
Idina Menzel will reprise her Tony-winning performance as the green-faced Elphaba in the upcoming West End production of Stephen Schwartz’s hit musical Wicked. The musical, which is currently playing Broadway, Chicago and a national tour, will officially open at London’s Victoria Apollo — currently host to Billy Joel’s […]
Michael Cole at a Wicked Reading in December 2001 Part of The Schwartz Scene back issue archives. Carol asked me to write about my experience singing in the ensemble of the December reading of WICKED. For those of you who don’t know, a “reading” of a musical or […]
John Fante, a major ‘little-known’ author, produced autobiographical novels about his early struggles which have inspired a select cadre of admirers. Among the most committed of these is writer-director Robert Towne, who’s been trying to get Fante’s Ask The Dust made for years. The upshot is a careful, […]
When “Rent,” a rock musical version of Puccini’s “La Boheme” opened off-Broadway last February, Jonathan Larson garnered the kind of rave reviews that young, struggling composer-lyricists pray and dream for. Larson wasn’t there to read the reviews–he died of an aortic aneurysm on the night of the final […]