For Gay Pride Month, Billboard asked numerous pop culture luminaries to write ‘love letters’ to the LGBTQ community. Below, singer and actress Idina Menzel — who originated the Broadway roles of Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked — shares hers. Happy Pride Month! To my LGBTQ friends […]
”IT’S good to see me, isn’t it?” Thus does Glinda the Good Witch introduce herself, suspended in midair and floating down into Munchkinland at the start of ”Wicked,” the new $14 million Broadway musical that takes place in the fictionally familiar land of Oz and opens at the […]
Everything was Rent 20 years ago, when the show opened at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre April 29, 1996. The cast takes us back to what life was like then. After Rent made its debut at Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop in January 1996, the musical quickly took off—garnering national […]
Beth — in a deeply felt, richly sung performance by Idina Menzel — is a bright urban planner, quickly rising to the top in New York’s city planning department while agonizing over her messy non-love life. Liz — also played, no less potently, by Menzel — is more […]
No matter what happens in Idina Menzel’s career, there will probably never be anything like what she went through last year when she was riding atop the pop culture wave. Professionally, “Frozen,” for which Menzel supplied the voice of Queen Elsa and sang the breakout song “Let It […]
Exiting the opening performance of “If/Then” at Paramount Theatre on Tuesday night, an adolescent girl was excitedly sharing with her companions her adoration of the musical’s star, Idina Menzel. She listed her favorite Menzel roles — the original witch Elphaba in the Broadway smash “Wicked,” for which she […]
It’s billed as a story about the place where chance and choice collide. “If/Then” is a new musical fresh off its run on Broadway. Star Idina Menzel and several other outstanding original cast members are in the current national tour of the show playing now through Sunday, Nov. […]
Idina Menzel takes defying gravity in stride. The raven-haired beauty first blazed into the celebrity firmament in 1996 as the outrageous Maureen in “Rent” on Broadway. Then her career got an extra layer of sparkle as the emerald girl, Elphaba, in “Wicked,” which opened in San Francisco in […]
5 STARS It all emerges out of one neighborhood in one of the most unique and powerful cities on earth, New York City. It is about community and relationships and unforgettable people. ‘If/Then’ is a musical story of human life. The staging is pure brilliance; it truly brings […]
When Idina Menzel first appeared onstage, her presence abruptly bringing the swelling overture to a stark silence, there was perhaps no greater applause during the nearly three-hour performance of “If/Then” than when she delivered the show’s opening line: “Hey, it’s me.” And that immediate enthusiasm is completely warranted, […]
Oscar and Tony award winner Idina Menzel is bringing her Broadway musical to Hollywood. In “If/Then,” Menzel plays a 40-year-old woman who moves back to New York City for a fresh start. The audience watches as her life splits into two parallel paths with both storylines playing out […]
Tony Award winner Idina Menzel, who was to play her final performance in Wicked Jan. 9, was injured during the Jan. 8 matinee of the hit Stephen Schwartz musical. Shoshana Bean, Menzel’s standby who was slated to officially take over the role of Elphaba beginning Jan. 11, played […]
Tony Award winner Idina Menzel, whose final weekend in the hit musical Wicked was marred by an onstage injury that left her with a broken rib, has posted a letter on her official website. Menzel writes, “So here I am, on my couch, propped up by 12 pillows, […]
Idina Menzel is no stranger to singing the national anthem at high-profile sporting events. She just did it, in fact, at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game this past July. And this is what she learned: There’s a lot of testosterone on that field, especially when you’re standing […]
The Broadway star on the people who inspire her. Kristin Chenoweth I worked with her on Wicked. She played Glinda and I loved watching the precision with which she approached her lines, and how she found the comedy in everything. She taught me what it means to take the […]