How Idina Menzel and Tina Landau Brought Redwoods to Broadway

Congrats to you both on the show opening. Can you tell me a bit about the show’s inception?

Tina Landau: Maybe 15 years ago or something, Idina invited me to have coffee. We’d known each other from around the theater community and wanted to work together. She told me a story about Julia Butterfly Hill, the activist who went into a redwood in protest of logging practices in the 1990s. I’d been reading The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino.

Idina: I thought there was something really cool about a woman living in a tree. The idea of escaping — the strength, courage, fortitude to do something like that — and I fell in love with the redwoods and everything they stand for. And when I took the idea to Tina, her whole office was decorated with art of trees.

Tina: When we first met up, we really dug into the question of, Why are we both obsessed with this? The idea sat dormant for a while… and during COVID I called Idina and said, “Remember that story about someone in a tree? Are you still interested?” She said, “What took you so long?”

You’ve both worked on a lot of original theater material in your careers. How was this process similar or different to other new shows you’ve worked on?

Idina: The big thing is I’ve had a hand in the creative. I contributed to the writing, I’m producing — I’m wearing a few different hats, which I’ve never done before. It’s similar to other projects in that there’s the exhilaration of creating something new… and having the patience to go through a process that can be painstaking at times, because you have to keep making improvements, advancing and recalibrating. And of course there’s nothing like standing at a piano with your composer with a completely new song they’ve written for you.

Tina: I’ve tended to do a lot of big shows, meaning, you know, with lots of people or big visuals in them. This has been very intimate. It’s only five characters, and a lot of the time it’s only Idina on-stage. So rehearsals were really just me and Idina, or me and Idina and one or two other people. That kind of intimacy has led to a process that’s personal and very focused. Big shows, they’re like big machines you’re spearheading. This, meanwhile, is like sitting down with close friends, dreaming and musing and finding worlds together.

What is it about trees that fascinates you?

Tina: I have loved being around trees since I was young. Escaping into trees, climbing trees… many of us, from our childhoods, have a sense of our relationship to trees and what that conjures for us in terms of play and innocence and connection and magic. As I got older and learned more about trees and how they communicate with each other, what their life cycles are, they became very emblematic to me of many life lessons — how I hope to live in order to be more like a tree.

During the pandemic, I lost a young nephew who I was very close to. I was boarded up in Connecticut in a very beautiful spot surrounded by trees. As I started writing the piece, I was dealing with those two things: one, the grief and two, the solace and wonder I was discovering by staring at the trees every day and walking amongst them. That winter, my partner and I drove cross-country and ended up in the redwoods, and I began my real learning about them.

Rent famously premiered at the Nederlander in 1996. What’s it been like being back on the stage there, Idina?

Idina: Oh, it’s been like a homecoming. A full-circle experience. It’s been really emotional… it feels right, like everything’s in its place. You know, like we belong there. There was a moment during tech, I was brought back — what is it, almost 30 years — I was standing center stage, and I had a moment where I stepped back in time. I feel really at one with it.

Idina, would you say you relate to Jesse? Have you ever considered disappearing like that?

Idina: I relate to her vulnerability, to her frustration. To her maternal instincts and her desire to be a better person, and, yes, to her desire to pack everything up sometimes and change my life. I mean, I’m a mom of a 15-year-old — who I am more in love with than anything else — so I wouldn’t just disappear now. But I do relate to the idea of rewriting your story, especially in the past, when I might have been severely depressed or heartbroken. The need to find solace and perspective in my life.

Has the show changed much since you mounted it at the La Jolla Playhouse?

Idina: We spent a lot of time through the years at La Jolla. They embraced us and allowed us to workshop the show there. It’s a wonderful place to work on new material. We were pleasantly surprised, because people really connected to the material right away. That was encouraging. Instead of feeling like anything was wrong, we just felt like things could be made even better. We had time to say, “Could this song be even more memorable? Could this or that help better define the character?” We wrote some new songs, we cut some. We didn’t have that “In the Leaves” performance in there.

Tina: After La Jolla, I basically sat down and asked about every single moment: “Can it be better? What would make it more surprising or deeper, more funny or more true?” I was rigorous with how I went through the show. We ended up cutting five songs — and writing six new ones. “In the Leaves” was the big one we added, with Idina swinging through the trees and singing.

Speaking of, what was it like learning to climb and dance in the tree like that, Idina?

Idina: Our choreographers are from a vertical dance company called Bandaloop, Tina found them. They dance on the side of mountains, trees, buildings, they are just astounding. They really took us under their wing. They taught us how to climb, about the harness and safety. I had many sessions with them. I’d go to Oakland to work with them; they’re extremely proud of their work and extremely safety-oriented. And then I went to a studio and learned how to really swing around and use my body — I love that part of the show, because so much of Redwood is about the abstract and the poeticism of the trees. That’s my favorite part of my show, being up there — I’m brought back to that innocence of being in trees every night. It was difficult at first, the singing and swinging, but it’s getting much easier.

What’s it been like working together on this?

Tina: Working with Idina has been the best. It’s been very unique. It’s not like any collaboration I’ve had with anyone else, in that the lines are very fluid, it’s very open. It’s been like family — home-grown, in a way. It’s been very unpredictable. She’s been my rock and my inspiration and my guide through the process.

Idina: Tina is a very special human being. She’s a writer, a director, a lyricist, a mentor. She can really see into somebody’s soul. She’s very empathic and intuitive. It’s important to her to know how people feel; she knows we can do our best work when we all acknowledge what we’re feeling. She really gives actors the permission and freedom to make their own choices and find their own way into the material.