\n<\/p>\n
Idina Menzel was sitting on a bench in a California redwood grove, yearning for silence. It was late one autumn afternoon, and I had been trying for months to get her to meet me in a forest where we could discuss this musical she\u2019d been working on for 15 years about a woman in a tree, and now here we were. But also, there was a wedding party walking by, and an unleashed dog that knocked over her hibiscus tea, and an aircraft buzzing overhead.<\/p>\n
No matter. On the drive to the forest from a dance studio where Menzel had been practicing singing upside down, because yes, this musical requires her to dance and sing while scaling a giant tree, she had been thinking about what she wanted to tell me about why she was making a show that is outwardly about redwoods \u2014 it\u2019s called \u201cRedwood<\/a>\u201d \u2014 but also about a grieving woman\u2019s search for sanctuary.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a little reticent to say, but I think I have a lot of noise in my own head as a person,\u201d she told me as we settled in at Oakland\u2019s Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park. \u201cThe idea of escaping and freeing yourself from your own pain or loneliness or confusion is very healing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n In an entertainment industry where actors are lucky to have one career-defining role, Menzel already has three: Maureen, the rabble-rousing performance artist in \u201cRent\u201d; Elphaba, the green-skinned who-are-you-calling-wicked witch in \u201cWicked\u201d; and Elsa, the ice-conjuring queen in Disney\u2019s animated \u201cFrozen\u201d films. Those characters have many strengths, but serenity is not one of them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI had to audition for all of those roles. I didn\u2019t choose them \u2014 I needed a job. And yet, maybe somehow I attract them to me,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cThey\u2019re fierce women, but I\u2019m not afraid of making them very fragile at times. They\u2019re also women \u2014 especially Elphaba and Elsa \u2014 who are afraid of their power. They\u2019re afraid that they\u2019re too much for people, and that their power will hurt people. And I think I feel that way in my life a lot. I\u2019m too big. Too loud.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRedwood,\u201d<\/a> which is in previews on Broadway and is scheduled to open Feb. 13, tells the fictional story of an anguished New York gallerist, named Jesse, who embarks on an unplanned road trip and winds up near Eureka, Calif., where, awed by the soaring redwoods, she befriends a pair of canopy botanists and persuades them to let her stay on a platform high in a tree. The musical, first staged last year at La Jolla Playhouse<\/a> in San Diego, not only features climbing, but it is also technologically ambitious, with more than a thousand LED panels enveloping the stage, offering panoramic forest vistas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like a National Geographic show \u2014 it\u2019s poetic, and has an abstract aesthetic, where everything is done from the perspective of Jesse\u2019s mind,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cSo we climb, but we also dance, whatever that means in the trees.\u201d<\/p>\n To make the climbing realistic, she has been working with Bandaloop<\/a>, a dance company based in Oakland that specializes in \u201cvertical performance\u201d \u2014 dancing on the sides of buildings and bridges and walls. The company, credited with vertical movement and vertical choreography for \u201cRedwood,\u201d has worked with entertainers before \u2014 including the singer Pink<\/a> \u2014 but this is its first theater venture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On the day I met Menzel in California, we started at Bandaloop Studios; when I arrived, she was suspended a few feet in the air, with a black-and-red harness strapped over her bluejeans and gray half-zip hoodie, and she was practicing spinning her body while parallel to the floor. It was hard to control her movement, and at one point she accidentally kicked Bandaloop\u2019s artistic director, Melecio Estrella, in the groin.<\/p>\n \u201cI just want to remember how to do the thing I knew how to do!\u201d she said with frustration.<\/p>\n Light streamed in from the street, motorcycles roared by, and instructors offered encouragement. \u201cThat\u2019s it!\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re doing great!\u201d<\/p>\n Menzel beamed as she executed a solid spin, but then reminded herself that was just the start. \u201cAnd then sing really high notes!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The challenge of figuring out how to flip around on the side of a tree while singing was an appealing one. \u201cTo give me something physical to do is very healing for me, and it gets me out of my head,\u201d she said. \u201cIt keeps me present. Otherwise, I\u2019m going to fall down.\u201d<\/p>\n Menzel, who is 53 and last appeared on Broadway a decade ago<\/a>, is deeply involved with every aspect of the show. She had the initial idea that became \u201cRedwood,\u201d contributed to the writing, stars in it, and her company, Loudmouth Media, is among the lead producers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cRedwood\u201d opens at a particularly challenging time for new musicals, when a sharp rise in capitalization costs means that vanishingly few such shows become profitable on Broadway.<\/p>\n But new musicals have been at the heart of Menzel\u2019s stage career. She said she doesn\u2019t feel like others see her as a good fit for revivals of classic works, but she also obviously revels in the messy process of artistic creation, saying, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of stories still to be told, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This musical is, in part, a love letter to redwoods. Menzel\u2019s character sees them as sentient. \u201cThe redwoods signify everything I think we strive for as human beings,\u201d Menzel said. \u201cTheir roots clasp hands with each other and sustain each other and hydrate and fuel each other and hold each other up.\u201d<\/p>\n In preparation for the show, Menzel and her sister took a road trip to the Avenue of the Giants, a scenic forest drive in Northern California. I asked her how she feels when she\u2019s surrounded by towering trees. \u201cIt can make you feel completely alone, or like a part of something astounding at the same time,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I love about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cRedwood\u201d has its origins in the story of Julia Butterfly Hill, an environmental activist who in the late \u201990s spent 738 days living in a 1,000-year-old tree<\/a>, called Luna, in an effort to prevent it from being logged. (The timber company backed down<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Menzel approached Tina Landau, a theater director for whom she had once unsuccessfully auditioned (for a 2001 revival of \u201cBells Are Ringing\u201d), and suggested they collaborate. \u201cShe called me out of the blue, and said, \u2018Can we meet for coffee?\u2019\u201d Landau recalled. \u201cAnd she tells me, \u2018I\u2019ve been obsessed with this woman Julia Butterfly Hill.\u2019 And I said, \u2018That\u2019s funny, because I\u2019m a little obsessed with trees,\u2019 and I had a thing about people<\/a> in trees<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Menzel was drawn to the theme of bravery; Landau was more interested in why people retreat into nature. Nothing came of it. Menzel called again; she had been writing shards of songs and story. But they were both busy.<\/p>\n Then the pandemic hit. Landau, idled as a director, was focusing on writing, and now they got serious. They decided they didn\u2019t want to make a musical about environmental activism; whatever they did would be fictional and psychological, about a woman\u2019s journey into the redwoods and up into a tree. But why was she there?<\/p>\n Life, or rather death, tragically suggested a story line. That spring, Landau\u2019s 23-year-old nephew, to whom she was quite close, died of an accidental drug overdose. The director found herself home in Connecticut, seeking solace while contemplating trees. And soon, their woman-in-a-tree show had its back story: The character would be unmoored by her son\u2019s drug-related death. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Landau, who then drove to California and visited the redwoods, began to think of the trees as exemplars, as teachers, as guides. She was thinking, too, about Menzel. \u201cI wanted to create a role that would stretch her and expand her and invite her into other territories,\u201d she said, \u201craging in a different way, and erratic in different ways.\u201d Also: The character would be funny. Menzel has a wry sense of humor, and Landau found herself taking notes during their conversations, turning snippets of Menzel\u2019s patter into dialogue.<\/p>\n They still needed a songwriter. Menzel wanted someone with a contemporary pop sound; Landau knew she wanted a fresh voice from outside musical theater. \u201cI just didn\u2019t want to go to anyone I knew,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Scouring the internet, Landau identified eight promising young women, and reached out to them cold, inviting them to write two songs on spec. Kate Diaz, a songwriter from Chicago, stood out; she had released acoustic albums and was working in Los Angeles on film and TV scores. Diaz was just 23, and her music immediately appealed to Menzel and Landau. \u201cShe has this really organic, soulful, melodic sound,\u201d Menzel said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Diaz set about studying Menzel\u2019s voice, listening to the cast recordings of \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cWicked\u201d as well as solo albums. \u201cI remembered \u2018Let It Go\u2019 \u2014 how could you not?\u201d she said, referring to the blockbuster, Oscar-winning \u201cFrozen\u201d song. \u201cShe can be so powerful but also be so internal,\u201d Diaz added. \u201cThere are so many parts of her voice to write for. I wanted her to have those big notes, but also she has such a raw, emotional lower register, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Menzel has been nurturing that voice for a long time. She performed as an adolescent on Long Island, singing at weddings and bar mitzvahs. \u201cRent,\u201d which opened Off Broadway in 1996 and then transferred to Broadway that same year, was her first professional job after graduating from N.Y.U., and after that all she really wanted to do was sing.<\/p>\n \u201cI left \u2018Rent\u2019 and I had a big record deal and I thought I was going to be the next Alanis Morissette, so I just focused on being a songwriter and being a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll star and making albums,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then I got dropped from the record label and I didn\u2019t sell any records. I had to start all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWicked,\u201d which opened on Broadway in 2003 after a run in San Francisco, was that new start \u2014 Menzel won a Tony Award for her performance, and it cemented her stardom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the years that followed, she moved to Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, Aaron Lohr, an actor turned therapist, and a teenage son, Walker, from her first marriage, to her \u201cRent\u201d co-star Taye Diggs.<\/p>\n Menzel has returned to Broadway just once, in the 2014 production of \u201cIf\/Then,\u201d but she has also worked Off Broadway (most recently in a 2018 play, \u201cSkintight<\/a>\u201d), on television (she played Lea Michele\u2019s mother<\/a> on \u201cGlee\u201d) and in film (she made two movies opposite Adam Sandler, including \u201cUncut Gems<\/a>\u201d) and she has an active concert career. A cringey moment when John Travolta mistakenly called her \u201cAdele Dazeem<\/a>\u201d at the 2014 Academy Awards redounded to her benefit. President Biden presented her with a National Medal of Arts<\/a>, with a citation saying she had \u201cempowered millions of Americans of all ages and backgrounds to be strong, use their voice, and lead with their hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n She is still uncomfortable with being seen as a role model. \u201cIt feels phony sometimes to represent empowerment and self-esteem when, you know, there are days when I can\u2019t get out of bed,\u201d she told me. \u201cBut I\u2019m really proud of what I\u2019ve accomplished and I\u2019m really proud of how it\u2019s been multigenerational and that I made these fans from \u2018Rent,\u2019 and now they have kids, and now their kids watch \u2018Frozen.\u2019 And I feel like we\u2019ve all grown up together.\u201d<\/p>\n Those fans are devoted to her. They packed the first preview performance of \u201cRedwood\u201d on Jan. 24, giving her sustained applause just for walking onto the stage, and when a technical issue forced the show to take a sizable pause (not unheard-of in early previews), she came onstage to banter with the audience, fielding questions about \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cWicked,\u201d greeting children in the front row (she gently informed them that this show has cursing) and leading the crowd in singing \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d to a few celebrating theatergoers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cRedwood\u201d is being staged at the Nederlander Theater, which has enormous significance for Menzel: It\u2019s where she made her Broadway debut 29 years ago in \u201cRent.\u201d \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s been very emotional, like a homecoming, and it\u2019s causing me to reflect a lot on who I am and where I\u2019ve come from,\u201d Menzel told me when we met in her dressing room nine days before that first preview.<\/p>\n That dressing room is the same one she shared during \u201cRent,\u201d although it has since been expanded, and this time she has it to herself. She hadn\u2019t fully settled in, but she was planning to cover the walls with images of redwoods, and sparkly wallpaper near the vanity, \u201cjust to embrace my theater diva.\u201d<\/p>\n She had spent part of that morning atop the huge tree at center stage (Jesse names the tree Stella), and while the creative team worked on technical elements of the show, Menzel sang bits of Glinda\u2019s soprano numbers from \u201cWicked,\u201d explaining that she and Kristin Chenoweth, who originated that role, have long fantasized about a benefit concert in which they swap parts.<\/p>\n How does she square her considerable accomplishments with her persistent angst? \u201cI\u2019m getting a little tired of my self-deprecation,\u201d she said. \u201cIn a way, it\u2019s been a crutch. It\u2019s a way of naming a shortcoming in my life before someone else can say it. But I also recognize that it makes me vulnerable, and that being vulnerable is so important to being a great performer and being able to connect with your audience. Making mistakes and being fallible are the things that draw people to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n So, yes, she is proud of her career, and happy to have enough financial security that she can be selective about what parts she takes. She said she expects the stage to remain important in her career, in part because, \u201cthe theater will always welcome me,\u201d adding that \u201cthere are better roles for older women in theater, as opposed to worrying about your beauty and your age in Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n I asked her again about her quest for quiet, which seems like it must be so hard to find in Times Square, at tech rehearsal, while shouldering a Broadway show. But Menzel said she was loving it all. \u201cI walk into what I feel is a sanctuary \u2014 the rehearsal room, or the theater \u2014 and I feel at one with myself, and comfortable,\u201d she said. \u201cI think of it as my home, and where I feel closest to my truest self.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nLove Letter to Redwoods<\/h2>\n
Going for \u2018Big Notes\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Like a Homecoming\u2019<\/h2>\n