Idina Menzel Opens Up About the ‘Versatility’ of Her Career That Inspired Her Take Me or Leave Me Tour

Idina Menzel is heading back out on the road.

The superstar announced her Take Me or Leave Me Tour exclusively via Billboard on Tuesday (April 23), marking her first tour in nearly eight years. “I was really missing the connection with my fans,” she tells Billboard of the decision to tour again. “I have my new musical Redwood at La Jolla Playhouse that I’m passionate about, and it’s been occupying me. I thought, if that goes through another iteration, I wanted to make sure I got my time with my fans from a personal perspective as opposed to through a character.”

The North American run kicks off July 19 in Seattle, Wash., before stretching throughout the summer, hitting venues in Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas and more before wrapping up on August 18 in Greensboro, NC. The tour title, of course, is inspired by the beloved song, “Take Me or Leave Me” from the musical Rent, in which Menzel made her Tony-nominated Broadway debut as Maureen Johnson in 1996.

“Maureen was always uninhibited and extremely comfortable in who she was, maybe to the fault [laughs],” Menzel says. “I’ve always loved that song and I miss that character, but I would say I’m naming the tour this from a different perspective. Obviously, many, many years later, it’s about who I am in this point in my life. I haven’t seen my fans in a long time, and I want to show them how I’ve changed, and how I haven’t. I want to show them my experiences and hopefully, they’ll love me no matter what.”

The beloved actress’ tour will feature a career-spanning setlist of hits, which she’s currently putting together and stays “up all night thinking about,” and she promises an “eclectic” mix of hits from her own albums and jazz standards as well as musicals she’s performed in like Wicked, Rent and, of course, Frozen. “I often wrestle with the fact that I often assume that people will be bored if I sing the same songs over and over, like ‘Let It Go’ or ‘Defying Gravity,'” she shares. “I’m always trying to rewrite things, discover or cover new songs, reinterpret them and then I always get this feedback of ‘No, we want to hear these songs!’ I’m trying to strike a balance between performing songs the way I think my audience would want to hear them and feeling like, as an artist, that I’m growing and singing the songs in a way that their lyrics resonate with me. I juggle it and then I sit with my band and we play with it and assess it and sort of see what kind of floats to the top.”

She concludes in theme with the tour’s “Take Me or Leave Me” title, “I’ve always said back in the day that versatility was my curse. Now, I embrace my versatility. It makes me who I am.”

Artist presale tickets for Menzel’s tour as well as VIP packages will be available starting on Wednesday (April 24) at 10 a.m. local time. General on-sale for tickets begins Friday (April 26) at 10 a.m. local time. See the full list of dates below, and check out the venues and ticket information here.

July 19 – Seattle, Washington
July 21 – Oakland, California
July 23 – Los Angeles, California
July 25 – Mesa, Arizona
July 26 – Highland, California
July 27 – Las Vegas, Nevada
July 30 – Austin, Texas
July 31 – Dallas, Texas
August 2 – Atlanta, Georgia
August 3 – Charleston, South Carolina
August 4 – Orlando, Florida
August 6 – Auburn, Alabama
August 7 – Greenville, South Carolina
August 9 – Chicago, Illinois
August 10 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
August 11 – Detroit, Michigan
August 13 – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
August 15 – New York, New York
August 16 – Hershey, Pennsylvania
August 17 – Washington, DC
August 18 – Greensboro, North Carolina