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HOME > SOVO SCENE > FEATURE
By: ROB BECK
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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.”
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