Interview: How Idina Menzel Is Giving Back This Pride Month

Idina Menzel is getting "Dramatic" with her new album! Menzel’s upcoming dance project "Drama Queen," scheduled for release August 18 via BMG, showcases her powerhouse vocals through soaring anthems, disco-infused beats, and just the right amount of drama.

Menzel worked alongside global hitmakers Nile Rodgers, Jake Shears, Justin Tranter, Sir Nolan, Simon Wilcox, Laura Veltz, Jim Eliot, Maty Noyes, Mitch Allan, Lindy Robbins, Chantry Johnson, Michelle Zarlenga and more to create a body of work that is a departure from what she’s put out in the past.

BroadwayWorld sat down with Menzel to discuss giving back to the LGBTQIA+ community through the new album, feeling less apologetic with her music, and her upcoming "unconventional" musical, Redwood.

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You've spoken about how this album is a love letter to the queer community. Why was it important for you to create this album for them?

I want to give back. I want to show my gratitude. I feel like my career all along the way, ever since Rent through Wicked, even through Elsa, these characters, I feel like have been informed by my friends in the LGBTQ+ community, sort of inspired by their courage and leading their authentic lives and you see so much of that mirrored in those characters. I just want to be a part of the celebration and Pride and also be an ally. To use my voice. To shed light on the hypocrisy and the cruelty and the attacks on our friends. I don't want to overlook that, even though I do want everyone to feel like it's a time to celebrate and dance.

For me personally, I wanted to do an album where I could still use my big melodies, my big voice but to get everyone to just like dance and move and groove. I felt like dance and disco, those are the kind of grooves that kind of really support big voices. Like Donna Summer back in the day, even like Barbara Streisand back in her disco days, Gloria Gaynor, and then even Cher came into having her dance album, that was huge. So even though it might feel unexpected, to me it's been sort of an organic transition

When I was in London, I was promoting Frozen 2, whenever I'm in London to be honest, I show up in clubs 1:00 in the morning, one particular one, Heaven and the G-A-Y circuit, I show up in the middle of the night and I just have the most fun. It's standing room only, everyone's packed against the stage, we're sweaty, we're crying, we're laughing, we're screaming and the energy is like nothing else and so I wanted music that I could return to that kind of venue with and just have a blast.

I've also been seeing you have so much fun at Pride events this month and you have some more coming up. What has it been like performing the new music at these events?

Yes, it's been really well received. Honestly, I feel like my fans support all of my creative choices so I feel really lucky for that. But it's just a really wonderful culmination of music, of spirit, of celebration. It just feels creatively artistically on point for me at this time.

You have your new song, "Dramatic," is out today. Can you tell me about it?

Yeah, so the whole album is called "Drama Queen" because I'm really trying to reclaim those words. Because for me, I'm proud of the fact that I have really bold feelings, emotions, that I'm fiery, that I can show passion and heartbreak and vulnerability and all those things wrapped in one. I feel like they make us who we are. So that's what the whole album sort of focuses on, but especially the single, "Dramatic." It's like, this is what you ask for. This is who I am, either take it or leave it.

The album also has a really exciting team behind it, with Nile Rogers and Jake Shears. What was it like working with them on the album?

It was incredible. Nile Rogers is like a mentor to me. He's an incredible musician, obviously known for being like the god of disco, but he's an incredible musician for all kinds of music and through the generations and has had a renaissance where this generation has been sort of finding him again and asking him to produce and play and write with them. So that's really wonderful.

Jake Shears is like an angel. He's so sweet, so creative, so supportive. Justin Tranter, another one who's my very good friend. So I feel really like I've learned a lot from working with these and collaborating with these creatives.

Is there maybe a track that we haven't heard yet that you're most looking forward to everyone hearing?

Yeah, I did do it last weekend. It's called "Beast." And I love it. It's kick ass, it's got an aggressive, it's aggressive. It's about unleashing the beast inside us all. I just love the grooves, got kind of like early '80s vibe to it. I really enjoy performing. I love blasting it in my car.

I've heard you discuss in interviews that at the beginning of your career, you were looked at as a rebel in the musical theater landscape and then going into the popular music landscape, it was almost too "musical theater." Now that you have the power to create the music you want, do you feel sort of unleashed? What is it like for you to create music now?

I do. With age comes some wisdom where I feel less apologetic about what I'm doing and I realize that my body of work is my throughline and that my body of work tells my story and my story is my throughline as opposed to the genre of music. But yeah, in the early days, and even now, I'm put in a box, it's harder for people to let you cross over certain lines. I feel sometimes that having got my start in Rent, which was a rock musical, that the theater community didn't accept us as a cast for being legit theater performers because we were "raw," or they thought we were raw and untrained, which we weren't, we were all theater majors.

Then when I got a record deal and I wanted to be a recording artist and do my pop music, I also had to convince people on that side of the music world that I wasn't gonna sing with tons of vibrato and that I could still be me and tell a story in a different way right up close to the microphone. So I did kind of like have to straddle both worlds for a while. It's still the same thing. People ask me now, "How does it feel? You're known for the theater, and now you're doing this dance track." It's like all these parts of music, just like "Drama Queen," all these sides of me are who I am. You just have to keep kind of putting out what feels creatively authentic to who you are and not worry about what kind of box you fit then.

Even just listening to your other album, "Idina.," and then looking through your musical theater and film repertoire, there is such an amazing range. Looking forward, is there anything that like you'd want to accomplish, either musically or professionally in some way, that you would want to add onto that?

Nothing specific.  I know that I always want to keep developing original musicals and characters. I feel it's important and supporting new young composers. I know that I want to keep working with people that are way more talented than me so I can get better. I want to do more TV and film with incredible actors and directors. I want to keep using my music and my voice to be able to see the world and connect with audiences in that way.

But I'm pretty happy. I kind of really like being a mom. I like being home a lot with my son, being a basketball mom. I like living both lives to be honest. I am a Gemini. So I do come off the stage from Pride three nights ago with hair extensions down to my ass and then take them out and drive my kids to a math final today with my very little bob and no makeup and ripped jeans. My husband actually says, "I really enjoy the fact that I get these different sides of a woman. It's very exciting."

I am also a Gemini, so I very much respect the different sides of the personality and everything. You mentioned it quickly earlier. Next year you are returning to the stage. What are you most looking forward to with your upcoming musical, Redwood?

How unconventional it is. I've been working with Tina Landau who's a director but also a writer and we have these really great ideas about new concepts and visual concepts. It's a small story within a majestic setting and it's another project with a really young new composer and it's Kate Diaz. She's in her early 20s and she's just astounding and so I'm excited to sort of introduce her to our world. I just think there's a lot of unconventional aspects to the show that I'm eager to to share with everyone.

Well until we see you on the stage then, do you have New York performances planned? Are we going to see a potential tour for the album?

Yeah, right now it's Pride all summer I'll probably show up somewhere in New York like in the 1:00 in the morning. Then depending on if people are really enjoying it, then I'm gonna take it out and do a real full-fledged tour.

Well thank you again for using your voice to celebrate Pride this year. It's been so amazing to see.

It's so important and like I said, it's enough for everyone in the queer community to have to fight every day just to be accepted for who they are, that it's our job as allies to get out there on the front lines and take some of that energy or responsibility off of them and use our voices to try to shake the system up and protect our friends. 

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Listen to the lead single from "Drama Queen," "Move," here: