Despite lingering concerns over the Delta variant, Broadway productions have ramped back up, and that’s good news to fans — and to veterans of the Great White Way like Idina Menzel. 

The Wicked Tony winner tells ABC Audio that she’s happy there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic, which shut theaters down on March 12, 2020. 

“I’ve felt a lot of sadness about it,” she said of the locked-down period. “I am excited that people are going to be going back to work, and that my friends in the community will be doing what they love to do — and what is so good for our for the world when they are doing the thing that they’re most passionate about.”

Idina continues, “Having not been able to do that, people being out of work, to be a creative person, not be able to get up there and just do what you have to do…there’s a hunger and sadness in that that goes beyond what you would expect.”

Menzel, who can currently be seen opposite Camila Cabello in Cinderella on Amazon Prime, adds, “I just hope everyone’s safe and we can start seeing the marquees light up again.”

She enthuses, “And there’s some great shows that are coming back. I mean, Wicked is my family, you know. …So I’m glad that more generations are going to be able to go back and see Wicked. And all the real classic shows are coming back. And then there’s some new ones, like Music Man with Sutton [Foster] and Hugh Jackman and a bunch of other shows.”

Adds Idina, “But yeah, it feels good to see, for all of us to start going back to work and doing what we love to do.” 

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