Idina Menzel

Idina Kim Menzel was born on May 30, 1971, in Manhattan and raised in Syosset, New York, on Long Island, where her family relocated when she was approximately three years old. Her father, Stuart Mentzel, worked as a pajama salesman, and her mother, Helene Goldberg, was a therapist. Menzel has a younger sister named Cara. She is Jewish, with grandparents who emigrated from Russia and Eastern Europe. She attended J. Irving Baylis Elementary School in Plainview, New York, followed by H. B. Thompson Middle School and Syosset High School. At age 15, following her parents' divorce, she began performing as a wedding and bar and bat mitzvah singer, work she continued while studying at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama in 1992. She also adjusted the spelling of her surname from Mentzel to Menzel to reflect the pronunciation her family had adopted in the United States. In 1992, Irish songwriter Jimmy Walsh reported that Menzel recorded a demo of the song "In Your Eyes" for him, a song that went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest in 1993 for Irish singer Niamh Kavanagh; Menzel was paid $75 for the recording.

Menzel's Broadway career spans from 1996 to 2025. She made her Broadway debut as performance artist Maureen Johnson in the rock musical Rent, which originated Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on January 26, 1996, before transferring to the Nederlander Theatre. Menzel had auditioned for the show in 1995, and it became her first professional theatre job. She had been friends with castmate Adam Pascal before the two worked together on the production. Her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, though she lost to Ann Duquesnay for Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. Her final performance in Rent was on July 1, 1997. Following the success of the show, she released her first solo album, Still I Can't Be Still, on Hollywood Records. She also originated the role of Dorothy in Summer of '42 at Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, starred as Sheila in the New York City Center Encores! production of Hair, and appeared on Broadway as Amneris in Aida. In 2000, she received a Drama Desk Award nomination for her performance as Kate in the Manhattan Theatre Club's Off-Broadway production of Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party. Her other Off-Broadway credits include The Vagina Monologues.

In 2003, Menzel was cast as Elphaba, the misunderstood Wicked Witch of the West, in the Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman musical Wicked, based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. She starred alongside Kristin Chenoweth. Following a San Francisco tryout, the production began previews at Broadway's Gershwin Theatre on October 8, 2003, and officially opened on October 30. Menzel won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the role and can be heard on the show's Original Broadway Cast recording. During her penultimate performance on January 8, 2005, she fell through a trap door during the melting scene and cracked a lower rib, preventing her from performing her scheduled final show on January 9; her standby, Shoshana Bean, played Elphaba that evening. Menzel nonetheless made a special appearance at that performance, delivered her final song, and received a five-minute standing ovation. Broadway.com readers later voted her their favorite Elphaba out of eleven actresses who had played the role on Broadway by that time.

After departing Wicked, Menzel appeared Off-Broadway in the Public Theater's production of See What I Wanna See, a musical by Michael John LaChiusa that closed in December 2005, earning her Drama Desk Award and Drama League Award nominations. She then reprised her role as Elphaba in the West End production of Wicked, which opened at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre on September 27, 2006. She starred alongside Helen Dallimore as Glinda and Adam Garcia as Fiyero, and during her run she was the highest-paid female performer in the West End, earning $30,000 per week. Her West End run concluded on December 30, 2006, and she was succeeded by standby Kerry Ellis. In May 2008, Menzel played Florence in the 21st-anniversary concert of Chess at London's Royal Albert Hall, alongside Kerry Ellis, Adam Pascal, and Josh Groban. That same year, she headlined the Powerhouse Theatre's reading of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's musical Nero, performing the role of Poppea from July 11 to 13.

Menzel returned to Broadway in 2014 in If/Then, a musical by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, directed by Michael Greif, who had also directed the original production of Rent. She starred as Elizabeth, with the show premiering at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., in November 2013 before moving to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it began previews on March 4, 2014, and officially opened on March 30. The production ran for 29 previews and 401 regular performances before closing on March 22, 2015. Her performance earned her a third Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical, though she lost to Jessie Mueller for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Menzel also appeared in Redwood on Broadway, extending a stage career that continued through 2025.

Menzel's work in film and television began in the early 2000s. She reprised her role as Maureen Johnson in the 2005 film adaptation of Rent and appeared in a supporting role in Disney's Enchanted in 2007. From 2010 to 2013, she played recurring character Shelby Corcoran on the television series Glee. Beginning in 2013, she voiced Elsa in Disney's Frozen franchise; the song "Let It Go," which she recorded for the first film, reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100. She subsequently appeared in supporting roles in Uncut Gems (2019), Cinderella (2021), and You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023). As a recording artist, Menzel has released seven studio albums, including I Stand (2008) and Holiday Wishes (2014), the latter of which peaked at number six on the Billboard 200, making it her highest-charting studio album. Her accolades include a Tony Award and a Daytime Emmy Award.