Arts & Entertainment

Menzel’s magic

Broadway powerhouse brings summer tour to Wolf Trap next week

Published

14 years ago

July 26, 2012

Singer Idina Menzel balances motherhood, touring, Broadway and Hollywood in a busy career but says she enjoys the concerts most. (Photo courtesy Concord Music Group)

‘An Evening with Idina Menzel’
Aug. 3, 8:15 p.m.
Wolf Trap Filene Center
1551 Trap Rd.
Vienna, VA
Tickets range from $20 (lawn) to $100 (orchestra pit)
Idinamenzel.com

Pretty much any veteran live performer will say they have some little personal “trick” they use to keep their most oft-performed material fresh. For Idina Menzel and her trademark “Wicked” showstopper “Defying Gravity,” it’s sometimes a gay teen — perhaps with a little projecting — that helps get her through the song.

Well, that and what she describes as kind of obligation she has to the star-making material.

“That song is a personal gift to me,” she says. “I have a personal debt I owe to that music. Because I have to sing it so much, people ask if it gets monotonous. I can truthfully say that doesn’t happen because every time I sing it, I come from a different place. It could be the young 14-year-old boy in the front row singing it along with me who may not have come out yet. I know how much the song means to him, so I can sing it to him that night. I think it’s a testament to how well written a song it is that it can speak to so many different people.”

Menzel brings her summer tour to Wolf Trap next week for her only D.C.-area appearance. The Tony winner, who’s become a household name since she debuted in “Rent” in 1996 and later in “Wicked” in 2003, also varies her set list slightly from city to city, another show-freshening trick she swears by. She’ll perform in Virginia with the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Steven Reineke.

“I’m excited about the show not only because of the material I’m doing, but because I feel like I’ve found a way to make every city have a show that’s unique to them,” Menzel, 41, says. “People should know when they come to see the show they can leave feeling like they got to know a little piece of who I am and it’s not the same everywhere. Every city’s just a little bit different.”

“I’ve been doing it with the symphony for almost three years already, which I truly love. It’s been a wonderful experience for me, which is why I continue to do it,” Menzel says. “There’s an intimacy I’m able to maintain even though I have all these musicians behind me. I had to strike a balance with it early on. It was a little bit of work for me to figure out how to do that, but now it’s pretty natural and organic.”

Even after appearing in two seasons of “Glee” and in films like “Rent” and Disney’s “Enchanted,” Menzel still finds singing live to be her favorite brand of performance.

“I definitely thrive off of the live audience and the adrenaline of being in the moment,” she says.

In 2009, Menzel had her first child, son Walker, with fellow Broadway actor and husband Taye Diggs. Before motherhood, Menzel had a strict regimen for keeping her vocals up, but now being more flexible with her schedule as a mother has only enhanced her performance experiences, she says.

“The more I sing the better for me. I’m like a marathon runner as far as running everyday. So that’s kind of how I approach it — athletically. And I’m just finding that being a mom and having a little boy now has changed my whole perspective on that. I used to have such a ritual and routine that I still try to keep, but if I deviate from it I’m a little less hard on myself, and in return I feel like the rewards are greater for me professionally. I may not be as prepared vocally, but then I’m on stage and I feel more free.”

Menzel’s summer tour includes old favorites from her roles on Broadway in “Wicked” and “Rent,” as well as other hits featured in her concert “Barefoot at the Symphony” that aired on PBS and has now been released on DVD.

“There are a few songs I wouldn’t leave stage without singing. I’m constantly changing [the set list], trying to tell different stories,” Menzel says. “It’s half and half music people would expect and the other stuff is new stuff I want to challenge myself with.”

Looking back, Menzel finds that she was in very different places in life during her appearances on “Glee” in the show’s first and third seasons. She was still adjusting to being a mom while filming the first season, but during the filming of the third season was more used to juggling parenthood and her career.

“The last season I was on I enjoyed it a lot more. I was learning how to balance motherhood and work for myself. I was enjoying the cast and I didn’t have to run home every second to pump my boobs or whatever,” Menzel says. “I hope [the cast] are all really appreciating it and enjoying it in the moment because you can easily lose sight of how incredible it is. I would love to do more TV, but my definitive wish was to get back to New York and do another show.”

In addition to touring, Menzel is working on a number of projects. She’s working alongside composers of original pieces for new musicals to act as a “muse,” singing and doing readings of their work so they can hear the results of their writing. She’s also thrilled to start work as Elsa in a new Disney movie called “Frozen” set for release in 2013.

“It’s amazing for me, like a dream,” she says. “It’s an animated Disney movie and there’s lots of music in it. It’s a beautiful story, and we just got started.”

And yes, as clichéd as it might sound for a Broadway powerhouse, Menzel is aware and appreciative of her gay following.

“I did the Atlantis cruise ship with 1,000 gay men and I had probably the greatest time I’ve ever had,” she says.

Though on one hand she says it makes no difference — “an audience is an audience, made up of all different kinds of people” — she says the gay kids who tell her “Wicked” helped them come out mean a lot.

“All that kind of stuff is part of the benefits I reap from what I do for a living. It enriches me as a person and I feel like everyone’s in it together out there.”

Gay conductor to lead NSO for Menzel show

By BRIAN T. CARNEY

Steven Reineke conducts for Idina Menzel next week at Wolf Trap. (Photo by Michael Tammaro)

Maestro Steven Reineke says his friend Idina Menzel wouldn’t want him to say too much about what she’ll be singing at their upcoming performance with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap.

But he does mention, “She covers a lot of material in her set. And she tells great stories. She’s very interactive with the audience. There’s even some audience participation.”

He’s more forthcoming about the first half of the program, which will start with one of his own compositions. The gay composer and conductor wrote “Celebration Fanfare” when he was 25 (he turns 42 in September) and notes that the piece is still performed frequently by orchestras and concert bands across the country. The work is dedicated to Erich Kunzel, conductor of the Cincinnati Pops, who served as a mentor to Reineke and encouraged his career as both composer and conductor.

Reineke resisted the temptation to start the evening with his own version of “Defying Gravity,” though Reineke’s piece was written to celebrate another kind of flight — the centennial of the Wright Brother flight. He says it’s a funny coincidence that Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz used the same title for the Act I finale of “Wicked,” a number that has become a signature piece for Menzel.

“We just happened to come up with the same title. They have nothing to do with each other whatsoever,” he says.

Reineke started composing when he was a teenager. He remembers, “I had all this music running around my head. I started to plunk things out on the piano because I just needed to get these songs out. It wasn’t really a conscious choice.”

It was also about that time he realized he was gay.

”I came out to myself when I was 17 years old, a senior in high school getting ready to go off to college. I’ll never forget having that cathartic moment when I stared in the mirror and said the words out loud, ‘I am gay.’ That was the hardest part about the process.”

As he began his professional life, Reineke remained open about his sexuality and says it was “a no brainer” because “I was never really in. The more notoriety I got, the more it came up, and I’m just not the kind of person to deny it. I just treat it as a very normal part of life. There was no big coming out.”

Reineke isn’t sure why the “classical closet” (cultural critic K. Robert Schwarz’s term for the dearth of classical musicians who are openly LGBT) still persists so strongly. He does note, “I do wish that more people would treat is as a non-issue, whether they’re in the arts, or sports figures, or television or whatever.”

Staying in the closet, he says, only perpetuates myths.

“That’s one thing that keeps the stigma about it. People staying buried instead of saying, ‘Here I am, deal with it.’”

His sexuality has not played a major role in his musical career. As a composer, he often takes his cue from the visual and visceral imagery he finds in mythology and nature. Reineke, who initially wanted to be a film composer, says he needs a visual image in mind before he starts composing: “Basically I’m creating a soundtrack to my own movie in my own head.”

As a conductor and music director (he’s also music director of the New York Pops and the principal pops conductor for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra here in Washington), Reineke says his focus is on the audience and the musicians.

“I have no particular agenda other than the health and success of the orchestra and the good times had by an audience.”

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Theater

Iconic Eddie Izzard takes on 23 characters in ‘Hamlet’

Energized take on role offers accessible way to enjoy Shakespeare

Published

5 hours ago

April 4, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Eddie Izzard in ‘The Tragedy of Hamlet.’ (Photo by Carol Rosegg)

‘The Tragedy of Hamlet’
Through April 11
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre
450 7th St., N.W.
Tickets start at $90
Shakespearetheatre.org

Eddie Izzard is an icon.

Best known for her innovative standup and film roles, the famed British performer is also a queer activist who over the years has good-naturedly shared details from her decades long trans journey. What’s more, Izzard has remarkably run 43 marathons in 51 days for charity.

And now, Izzard finds a towering new challenge with the worldwide tour of “The Tragedy of Hamlet” (at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre through April 11), in which she plays 23 characters (Hamlet, King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, the ghost, etc.) in a solo performance running just over two hours.

At a recent performance, Izzard, before slipping into character, appeared on the unadorned stage to say that though infused with comedy, “Hamlet” is definitely a tragedy, a story of a family and country both tearing themselves apart. She also warns that there’ll be a lot of breaking the fourth wall. After all, it didn’t exist in 1600 around the time when “Hamlet” was written.

The play unfolds in flurry of movement and scandal as the Danish prince begins to plot revenge after learning that his father, the old king was conspired against and murdered.

While some of Izzard’s character shifts are shown only by a subtle change in stance or modulation of voice, others are more obviously displayed like court sycophant Polonius walking with a stiff leg and mimed cane, or his ill-fated daughter Ophelia trotting girlishly across the upstage platform.

Delivered downstage at the intimate Klein venue, Izzard’s Hamlet soliloquies are performed with striking clarity. The one actor play is adapted and edited by Mark Izzard (the star’s older brother) and directed by Selina Cadell who successfully fosters the visceral connection between the actor and the house. Directly addressing an audience is something Izzard does exceedingly well. You feel as if she’s looking at/speaking to only you.

Cuts and choices are made that might not please traditionalists. The stabbing of eavesdropping Polonius might prove disappointingly underplayed to some. Whereas, the subsequent satisfying dual/death scene is long and precisely choreographed. Fear not, Izzard doesn’t flag a bit, not even when battling a cough (as was the case on the night of No Kings Day).

Not surprisingly, Izzard leans into the comedy. Her deliciously placed pauses, lines read ironically, and double takes, all gifts of comedy sharpened to perfection over a long career that kicked off as a street performer in the early eighties in London’s Covent Garden.

The play within a play scene finds Hamlet slyly rattling the conscience of King Claudius. As played by Izzard, it’s wickedly delightful and especially good. And the back and forth between the grave diggers done as a clever Cockney and his green assistant is a master class in how to play a Shakespearean clown.

Kitted out in a black peplum jacket over leather leggings and boots, Izzard gives gender fluid shades of contemporary diehard scenester and a Renaissance courtier. (Design and styling by Tom Piper and Libby DaCosta)

Attention has been paid to the blonde high ponytail, crimson lips and matching lacquered nails. The hands are important. Whether balled into fists or fingers fluttering, they’re in use, especially when playing Hamlet’s ex-friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (a clever surprise that can’t be spoiled).

Tom Piper’s set is wonderfully minimal. It’s an empty white walled space with three narrow windows that appear cut deeply into stone like those of a castle. These white flats serve as the ideal canvas for lighting designer Tyler Elich’s looming shadows, ghostly green light, and other unexpected flourishes of drama.

Izzard fills the stage. Her presence is huge, and her acting first-rate. At times, you forget it’s a one-person show.

I’d like to say, prior knowledge of the Bard’s best tragedy isn’t necessary to enjoy this fast-paced production. Despite a halved runtime and obscure words replaced with modern equivalents (“tedious old git” Hamlet says of Polonius), familiarity with the play is helpful.

With “The Tragedy of Hamlet,” Izzard secures a place among fellow queer Brits like Miriam Margolyes (“Dickens’ Women”), Sir Ian Mckellan (“Ian McKellen on Stage”), and more recently Andrew Scott (“Vanya”) in the solo players’ pantheon.

Izzard’s energized take on Hamlet is terrific. The way her powerful public persona bleeds into the work without taking over is exciting, and a uniquely accessible way to enjoy Shakespeare.

Calendar

Calendar: April 3-9

LGBTQ events in the days to come

Published

1 day ago

April 3, 2026

Tinashe Chingarande

Friday, April 3

Center Aging Monthly Luncheon With Yoga will be at 12 p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. Email Mac at [email protected] if you require ASL interpreter assistance, have any dietary restrictions, or questions about this event.

Go Gay DC will host “First Friday LGBTQ+ Community Social” at 7 p.m. at Silver Diner Ballston. This is a chance to relax, make new friends, and enjoy happy hour specials at this classic retro venue. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Saturday, April 4

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Nellies Sports Bar will host “Nellies DC Drag Brunch” at 12 p.m. Come get served like a queen, by a queen at the top rated Drag Brunch in DC! Join Sapphire Blue, Deja Diamond and their team of amazing drag performers, for the most fun you’ll have all weekend. Tickets start at $58.51 and are available on Eventbrite.

Monday, April 6

Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Happy Hour Meetup” at 5:30 p.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar and restaurant. This event is ideal for making new friends. It’s free to attend. The group will gather inside at the purple booth to the left. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Tuesday, April 7

Universal Pride Meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group seeks to support, educate, empower, and create change for people with disabilities. For more details, email [email protected].

Wednesday, April 8

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit www.thedccenter.org/careers.

Thursday, April 9

The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. To be more fair with who is receiving boxes, the program is moving to a lottery system. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5:00 pm if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245.

Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breathwork and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.

a&e features

Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights

Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’

Published

2 days ago

April 2, 2026

Evan Caplan

Anthony Jones (Photo by Joshua Foo)

In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.

Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).

Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.

Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.

Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.

Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.

Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.

“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.

While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”

Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”

Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”

“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”

Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”

Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”

Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”

Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”

Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”

Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.