Video: Idina Menzel Explains What REDWOOD Is All About

To be welcomed back with so much love and warmth

It's all, it's very, it's emotional for me. Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Tony Award winner Adina Menzel is returning to Broadway to star in the new musical Redwood

which he co-created with Tina Landau and Kate Diaz. We dropped by the rehearsal room to meet the company

You're about to return to Broadway with this beautiful new musical. How excited are you in what's made this social

special for you. It's a big question. Yeah. I'm more than excited

I'm very emotional about it. We're coming back to the Niederlander Theater

where I got my start almost 30 years ago. So that sort of homecoming is very

moving for me to bring a show another original musical that I co-conceived

with Tina Landau. And it's a story that just I've always wanted to tell

Tina and I have this fascination for trees and this image of a woman in a tree we found

could be a really great musical. The show sort of calls upon the ethos of the Redwood Forest

and everything they represent their root system and how they sustain each other

and their interconnectivity and sort of a wonderful metaphor for how we are as actors and performers in the theater and why audiences come so that we can all kind of have this common experience together

So it's all just everything that I do as a performer and the reason why I love being here, I love being in a rehearsal room

making something new with a cast that I love to, to be welcomed back with so much love and warmth

It's all, it's very, it's emotional for me. I think what appeals to audiences, or at least did in La Jolla

was on the one hand, Jesse's journey, the story of an individual who goes through

something people can relate to and a kind of personal and emotional transformation

And then also the visual, experiential world of the show is so out there and large and surprising and immersive

and people really were swept away by the experience also. Okay, let's talk about collaborating with Adina Menzel and Kate Diaz

What that whole experience has been like for you. It's been fantastic. Adina and I have been friends for a long time

We conceived of the piece together about 15 years ago. We went our separate ways and didn't work on it again until the pandemic

When I called her up and I said, Well I not directing and I want to write now and will you do this with me And she said of course And we started We found Kate And both of them as a team have been phenomenal We very close We do everything together

And, yeah, I couldn't be happier. What was it about the material that attracted you to want to write this

Yeah, when Tina first reached out, she sent kind of like an overarching of the plot

which I found really inspiring and such a deep emotional story that's also so uplifting

And then it was really the setting, too, was really inspiring to me. She sent over kind of like a mood board of her vision for what the theater is going to look like with the immersion of all the screens and everything and how you kind of transported to the Redwood Forest, which I found really inspiring

And I was like, I'd love to see the show. Hopefully I'll be the composer of it. So I kind of just took that and ran with it when I was demoing

I am so excited. If anything, I'm more honored than I am excited. This is a really big blessing for me

And I'm just so grateful to be in a room with legends. Legends, legends, legends, through and through

All five of them, four of them. Who else am I on stage with? him. Everybody

You're one of the five. You're one of the five. It's been a long five years since the deer Evan Hanson, so I'm kind of coming back, and it's

lovely and to finally work with Adina. Let's be honest, we've been kicking around this town for 30 years, so to finally work

with her. And then to meet, Kayla, it's just like perfect counterpart, I would say

So, yeah, I'm excited. It's such a gift to be able to do new work at a time like this and to do new work that

is helmed by someone like Adina Manzel, but then also that is people like Michael Park, Kayla

Wilcoxin, D.A. day Dresiza Like it it is a dream come true to be able to create something like this with Tina as well That amazing Tina is always open to ideas It just feels so creative Nothing set in stone until we freeze the show

And so you really get to be that full creative being that you hope to be

They tell you to be in school and sometimes you get in processes and you don't really, you know, get to do that

But the new discoveries, new songs and new scenes. and how that changes and informs everything else that happens in the show

It's very exciting. Returning to Broadway and Redwood. Yes. Oh, I'm so excited

This piece is so special, and I'm thrilled to be coming in at this point

and helping to see it come to life. What's made it so special for you so far

I mean, the people in this room are really extraordinary, and I'm learning so much just being here

And, yeah, I really love this story, and I love the design, and I can't wait for people to see it

learning it all together with them, that's got to be so great. Yeah

I mean, I've always been a huge fan of Michael Park. And, you know, it's great to stand by for somebody who you respect so much

And, of course, Edina Manzell, we're, you know, absolute royalty. So it's a thrill

Yeah. I mean, you get to bring your own thing to it, but also learn as you go and see little gems of these people that you look up to in action

right in front of you at work every day. So yeah, it's been a blast