Menzel rose to popularity as a theatrical performer after making her Broadway debut as Maureen Johnson in Rent's rock musical. She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance. After appearing in several smaller-scale theatrical and Off-Broadway shows, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance as Elphaba in the Broadway musical Wicked in 2003.

Background and Early Life

Idina Kim Mentzel was born in Manhattan, New York City, on May 30, 1971. She lived up in New Jersey until she was around three years old when her family moved to Long Island's Syosset. Helene Goldberg, a therapist, and Stuart Mentzel, a pajama salesman, are her parents. Cara, her younger sister, is her only sibling, and Menzel is a devout follower of the Jewish faith. Her grandfather emigrated from Russia. Menzel went to Plainview's J. Irving Baylis Elementary School, Syosset's H.B. Thompson Middle School, and Syosset High School.

Her parents divorced when she was 15, and she began performing as a wedding and bar mitzvah singer, which she continued during her time at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she got a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama in 1992.

Idina changed the spelling of her surname to "Menzel" to better represent the Mentzel family's pronunciation in the United States. Before they worked together on Rent, she was pals with actor Adam Pascal.

In 2017, Irish New York-based songwriter Jimmy Walsh disclosed that Menzel recorded a demo for him in 1992 of the song "In Your Eyes," which went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest 1993 for Irish singer Niamh Kavanagh. For the recording, Menzel was paid $75.

Personal Life

On March 21, 2009, Menzel shared the honorary chair with Elton John, Patti LuPone, John Cameron Mitchell, Joan Rivers, and Robin Strasser at the Imperial Court of New York's Annual Charity Coronation Ball, Night of a Thousand Gowns.

Menzel performed in a special benefit event in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 17, 2009, to raise funds for the Pace Academy Diversity Program, which the Ron Clark Academy co-hosted. Two scholarships for Ron Clark Academy students to attend Pace Academy were funded due to the event. Philip McAdoo, a former Rent cast member and current Diversity Program Director at Pace Academy, arranged and hosted the event.

Menzel and her then-husband Taye Diggs launched the A BroaderWay Foundation to encourage young people in the arts in 2010. A BroaderWay supports summer camps, theatrical workshops, and creative educational programming and provides scholarships and opportunities to see professional productions. In the summer of 2011, Menzel and a team of recognized professional Broadway artists, including Taye Diggs, invited girls from underserved metro New York communities to a 10-day performing arts camp. The girls worked with Broadway artists to write an original musical performed at a New York theater during this camp. Belvoir Terrace Summer Camp in Lenox, Massachusetts, hosted the camp.

Menzel has long advocated for LGBT rights, collaborating with organizations such as The Trevor Project, the Give A Damn Campaign (filming a PSA and designing a T-shirt), and the NOH8 Campaign, standing for one of their famous duct-taped silent photographs.

Menzel performed with Bryan Cranston, Fran Drescher, and Denzel Washington at the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter Bonnet Competition in April 2014, after raising funds through her Broadway production If/Then.