Idina Menzel Goes Into the Bushes with “Redwood”

If you wish to really feel small and humbled by nature, stand subsequent to a redwood tree; if you wish to really feel highly effective and intertwined with nature, simply stand there a bit of longer. Whereas it’d sound like a paradox, it’s merely a matter of perspective—and it’s the message theater and movie star Idina Menzel is singing right down to us on earth from her momentary residence within the cover.  

Menzel, who co-conceived and stars within the immersive new musical Redwood, is taking audiences alongside on a journey without delay deeply private and wholly common in its exploration of individuals’s reference to themselves, one another and the pure world. The present opened on February 13 on the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway and tickets are on sale by July 6, 2025.

At REI Co-op, we all know that point spent outdoors is extra than simply recreation: It’s pivotal for our well-being. To raised research the correlation between nature and well being, the REI Cooperative Motion Fund has partnered with analysis and educational establishments exploring how and why and time outside can profit us all. Since 2018, REI has partnered with the College of Washington’s Middle for Nature and Well being, offering grants to fund analysis like a 2024 research concerning the outside’ capability to enhance an individual’s emotional regulation and general well-being. Comparable work by one other REI Cooperative Motion Fund grant associate, the College of California’s Middle for Nature and Well being, has proven that nature could be an efficient group well being instrument, with research individuals displaying decrease blood stress and decreased rumination after spending a further hour every week outdoors. 

However to harness the therapeutic powers of nature, we have to defend it. Advocating for constructive change on the legislative degree, the REI Cooperative Motion Community helps initiatives that defend native and nationwide parks, oceans, and old-growth forests, whereas rising out of doors fairness and discovering local weather options. 

Redwoods, for instance, are among the world’s tallest residing timber, able to rising practically 400 ft tall and surviving 1000’s of years. They seize carbon, keep biodiversity and supply meals and shelter for wildlife, assist include erosion from wind and water, and have wealthy Indigenous cultural significance that can’t be changed. They’re additionally underneath risk: Logging, real-estate improvement and wildfire suppression techniques that stress the timber’ habitats have drastically decreased the United State’s old-growth and mature forests. In 2024, greater than 46,000 REI Co-op Members took motion with the REI Cooperative Motion Community to urge the U.S. Forest Service to guard our old-growth forests.  

Longstanding efforts to guard these mighty giants immediately impressed Redwood too: Greater than a decade in the past, Menzel approached writer-director Tina Landau a couple of story that she couldn’t get out of her thoughts. Within the late Nineteen Nineties, activist Julia Butterfly Hill lived in a redwood tree for 738 days to attract consideration to the devastation attributable to logging in historical groves. She saved that tree and sparked an concept for Menzel and Landau that might develop and bend over time, like a sapling reaching up for the sky: How can one particular person’s relationship to the timber change the world? 

Whereas Redwood isn’t truly about Hill’s 200-foot-tall treehouse, it does go to nice heights: Menzel’s character, Jesse, finds herself confronted with a grief that sends her operating West, searching for escape and therapeutic, and encounters a bit of journey alongside the way in which. (Trace: There’s aerial choreography by the Oakland, California–primarily based BANDALOOP.)  

Unusual Path lately caught up with Menzel and Landau by way of e mail to be taught extra concerning the present and the timber that impressed it.  

The following interviews have been edited for size and readability. 

Unusual Path: What impressed you to create a present that takes place among the many redwoods, and what’s your private relationship with these old-growth timber? 

Tina Landau: It was a confluence of occasions. Idina got here to me with an concept a couple of lady in a tree as a result of she’d been impressed by the real-life story of Julia Butterfly Hill. She was defending the tree and bringing consciousness to the endangerment of our forests.  

Idina Menzel: This concept of escaping and with the ability to depart all the pieces behind if you really feel essentially the most alone or misunderstood was an intriguing concept to me. I used to be impressed by Julia Butterfly Hill—the energy and fortitude it could take to dwell on the prime of a redwood tree, that’s what appealed to me at first.  

TL: I’d at all times been obsessive about timber, and I used to be exploring the concept of a musical primarily based on Italo Calvino’s e-book The Baron within the Bushes. Throughout the identical time, I additionally made a number of journeys to the [northern California] redwoods—and my life was endlessly modified. I used to be awed by their measurement and age and majesty however, extra considerably, I realized astonishing issues about them. The extra I realized about how they develop, survive, resist hearth, have communal roots methods, the extra I wished to share their wonders with everybody on the earth! 

The 2 of you first mentioned this concept nearly 15 years in the past, earlier than lastly choosing it again up throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. That decade and a half, after all, has been a interval of super environmental change and problem worldwide. How has the story modified—and the way has it modified you—over that point?   

IM: It’s modified a lot through the years. As this story began to take form, I fell in love with the redwoods as a real testomony to resilience, standing sturdy for 1000’s of years. We’ve achieved many journeys as much as northern California to truly climb the timber and expertise issues firsthand, and it’s completely modified my perspective on the story that we try to inform. A technique we’ve been prepping for this present is by studying to climb (and the entire solid is now licensed climbers!), which has allowed me to totally immerse myself in Jesse’s life and story.  

TL: A lot has been found about redwoods [throughout the show’s development] and I proceed making little changes within the script primarily based on current science and new issues I be taught. Like most of our planet, redwoods have grow to be more and more threatened by local weather change—however it’s additionally grow to be clear how redwoods are our nice allies in preventing local weather change. Outdated-growth, coastal redwoods seize extra carbon dioxide from energy vegetation, vehicles, vehicles and the like than every other timber on earth—about triple the quantity that tropical rain forests do. Studying this, I adjusted our scientist characters’ work in order that they’re now finding out carbon sequestration. How may this not be a part of our story? 

Whereas conducting analysis for the present, had been you in a position to associate with any activists or scientists working towards the conservation of old-growth timber? 

IM: Whereas creating the present, we labored intently with thought leaders from organizations who’re doing wonderful work within the environmental safety house. I had a magical day with a person named Tim Kovar from Tree Climbing Planet, who is likely one of the few folks permitted to enter the cover of a redwood, and he took me up there and taught me much more concerning the redwoods. In return, I sang for him.  

TL: I’ve a video of her singing songs from the present whereas perching on a department 200 ft within the air! 

Being in nature is such a singular expertise that appears arduous to recreate inside a Broadway theater. How will you convey the expertise of being within the redwoods to the room?   

IM: Our set is an excellent particular place and idea. It’s immersive and makes you’re feeling like you might be in the course of these timber, or surrounded by stars, or inside Jesse’s head. It seems like a stupendous daydream. 

TL: Ah sure—precisely! We all know we may by no means recreate the redwood forest inside a theater, so we’re not even making an attempt to. What we are making an attempt to seize is the expertise of that world by the eyes and coronary heart and thoughts of our important character. The viewers enters a world, an expertise, greater than a place. A spot, an precise forest, is simply too literal. Our visuals are extra poetic: They’re subjective, expansive, stunning, emotional. 

Do you hope that the present evokes motion to guard the redwoods or different wild and pure areas within the U.S.?  

IM: I hope that by (re)introducing audiences to the redwoods, they depart the present feeling empowered to get entangled in activism, environmental or in any other case, and prioritize spending extra time in nature. 

TL: What our present gives is “getting up nearer and private” with one particular redwood. I hope that by realizing redwoods higher, our audiences shall be extra inclined to take a look at our listing of assets, get entangled, do extra analysis on their very own, spend extra time in nature.  

What do you hope audiences take away from the musical?  

TL: A way of their connection to others and to nature. An consciousness of how a lot all of us have to hyperlink collectively, because the roots of the redwoods do, and depend on one another to face tall. Additionally, inspiration to dwell, as one of many songs says, “massive and full and deep,” and do not forget that irrespective of how a lot ache or impediment comes our method: “There’s nonetheless the sunshine / There’s nonetheless the sky / There’s nonetheless the leaves / That rustle within the breeze.” 

IM: My hope is that audiences depart the theater feeling a bit of bit nearer to these round them and take solace within the concept of grounding your self in nature.   

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