IDINA
MENZEL
HAS
COME
A
LONG
WAY
from
her
days
as
a
wedding
singer.
“I
would
do
it
every
weekend
in
Long
Island
where
I
lived,
and
I
just
sang
everything
from
‘The
Greatest
Love
of
All’
to
‘Girl
from
Ipanema,’”
she
remembers.
Menzel
went
on
to
Broadway
and
recording
stardom
that
includes
originating
the
roles
of
love-crazy
lesbian
Maureen
Johnson
in
“Rent,”
and
the
pre-wicked
witch
Elphaba
in
“Wicked.”
She
won
a
2004
Tony
Award
for
the
latter.
Somewhere
along
the
way,
Menzel
found
time
to
marry
her
“Rent”
co-star,
model
Taye
Diggs,
and
she
also
spent
time
on
the
big
screen,
most
recently
in
last
year’s
“Enchanted.”
Now
she
brings
her
latest
album,
“I
Stand,”
for
a
live
show
at
Chastain
Park
on
July
18.
But
Menzel
hasn’t
forgotten
where
she
got
her
start,
which
is
why
she
includes
an
homage
to
her
days
entertaining
wedding
guests
in
the
current
show.
“For
a
young
girl,
it
was
a
really
great
experience
for
performing
and
learning
and
building
my
repertoire,”
she
says.
Menzel
promises
to
showcase
that
fully
grown
repertoire
onstage,
including
songs
that
people
will
know
from
my
past
but
that
I’ve
sort
of
rediscovered
in
a
new
context.”
MENZEL
HOPES
AUDIENCES
will
discover
that
underneath
the
lovable
lesbian
prima
donna
in
“Rent”
and
all
the
green
makeup
from
“Wicked”
is
an
artist
with
an
identity
all
her
own.
“The
identity
is
me
being
myself,”
she
says.
“Which
is
sometimes
a
more
vulnerable
place
to
be.”
A
large
part
of
the
vulnerability
is
the
personal
nature
of
the
songs
on
“I
Stand,”
the
majority
of
which
Menzel
wrote.
“I
have
so
much
invested
in
it,”
she
says.
“I
just
want
people
to
see
that
there’s
a
whole
other
side
to
me
as
well,
and
they’ve
been
really
supportive
of
that.”
AS
FAR
AS
HER
many
gay
fans
are
concerned
Menzel’s
life
in
the
theater
has
done
anything
but
put
taboos
on
her
career.
We
first
fell
in
love
with
her
in
“Rent”
in
1996,
portraying
a
gay
character
in
a
play
packed
with
gay
themes
during
a
time
when
frankness
was
rare.
“It
has
been
a
wonderful
responsibility
that
I
have
felt
for
my
entire
career
thus
far,”
she
says.
“It’s
connecting
with
young
people
that
are
questioning
their
own
sexual
orientation,
and
it’s
also
educated
me
and
opened
my
eyes
so
much
to
the
struggles
that
they
have
to
face
and
made
me
want
to
be
more
active
in
that
world.”
Menzel
also
appreciates
her
involvement
in
a
play
that
featured
people
living
with
HIV
and
AIDS
and
helped
improve
national
consciousness
of
the
issue,
while
humanizing
the
people
affected
by
it.
She
reunited
with
the
original
principal
cast
of
“Rent”
at
this
year’s
Tony
Awards,
for
a
performance
in
honor
of
the
play’s
impending
closure
on
Broadway.
“It
was
a
life-changing
experience
for
all
of
us,
and
it
was
very
special
to
be
there
and
to
be
able
to
recount
sort
of
what
it
meant
and
how
it
changed
our
lives
and
to
honor
[the
late
‘Rent’
playwright]
Jonathan
Larson,”
she
says.
MENZEL
EARNED
EVEN
more
gay
fans
in
the
past
year
when
she
released
dance
remixes
of
the
songs
“Defying
Gravity,”
from
“Wicked,”
and
“Gorgeous,”
off
her
album.
Both
songs
quickly
became
dance
club
hits.
“The
gay
community
supported
me
my
entire
career,
and
I
wanted
to
do
something
special
for
them,”
she
says.
“So
what
better
song
than
‘Defying
Gravity,’
about
flying,
and
that’s
sort
of
how
it
feels
when
everyone’s
in
the
club
when
you’re
dancing
until
four
in
the
morning.”
The
dance
floor
isn’t
the
only
place
Menzel
feels
like
she’s
defying
gravity,
since
she’s
flying
high
with
her
career,
doing
the
very
thing
she
always
dreamed
she
would
do.
“It’s
a
milestone
for
me
this
summer,
to
have
people
actually
paying
to
see
just
me
and
my
own
music,
and
I
don’t
take
that
lightly,”
she
says.
“It’s
a
privilege.”
The
following comments were posted by our readers and were
not edited by SOVO. We ask that you
treat others with respect; any post deemed offensive will
be removed.
