If you want to feel small and humbled by nature, stand next to a redwood tree; if you want to feel powerful and intertwined with nature, just stand there a little longer. While it might sound like a paradox, it’s merely a matter of perspective—and it’s the message theater and film star Idina Menzel is singing down to us on earth from her temporary home in the canopy.
Menzel, who co-conceived and stars in the immersive new musical Redwood, is taking audiences along on a journey at once deeply personal and wholly universal in its exploration of people’s connection with themselves, each other and the natural world. The show opened on February 13 at the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway and tickets are on sale through July 6, 2025.
At REI Co-op, we know that time spent outside is more than just recreation: It’s pivotal for our well-being. To better study the correlation between nature and health, the REI Cooperative Action Fund has partnered with research and academic institutions exploring how and why and time outdoors can benefit us all. Since 2018, REI has partnered with the University of Washington’s Center for Nature and Health, providing grants to fund research like a 2024 study about the outdoors’ ability to improve a person’s emotional regulation and overall well-being. Similar work by another REI Cooperative Action Fund grant partner, the University of California’s Center for Nature and Health, has shown that nature can be an effective community health tool, with study participants displaying lower blood pressure and decreased rumination after spending an additional hour a week outside.
But to harness the healing powers of nature, we need to protect it. Advocating for positive change at the legislative level, the REI Cooperative Action Network supports initiatives that protect local and national parks, oceans, and old-growth forests, while increasing outdoor equity and finding climate solutions.
Redwoods, for example, are some of the world’s tallest living trees, capable of growing nearly 400 feet tall and surviving thousands of years. They capture carbon, maintain biodiversity and provide food and shelter for wildlife, help contain erosion from wind and water, and have rich Indigenous cultural significance that cannot be replaced. They’re also under threat: Logging, real-estate development and wildfire suppression tactics that stress the trees’ habitats have drastically reduced the United State’s old-growth and mature forests. In 2024, more than 46,000 REI Co-op Members took action with the REI Cooperative Action Network to urge the U.S. Forest Service to protect our old-growth forests.
Longstanding efforts to protect these mighty giants directly inspired Redwood too: More than a decade ago, Menzel approached writer-director Tina Landau about a story that she couldn’t get out of her mind. In the late 1990s, activist Julia Butterfly Hill lived in a redwood tree for 738 days to draw attention to the devastation caused by logging in ancient groves. She saved that tree and sparked an idea for Menzel and Landau that would grow and bend over time, like a sapling reaching up for the sky: How can one person’s relationship to the trees change the world?
While Redwood isn’t actually about Hill’s 200-foot-tall treehouse, it does go to great heights: Menzel’s character, Jesse, finds herself confronted with a grief that sends her running West, seeking escape and healing, and encounters a little adventure along the way. (Hint: There’s aerial choreography by the Oakland, California–based BANDALOOP.)
Uncommon Path recently caught up with Menzel and Landau via email to learn more about the show and the trees that inspired it.
The following interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Uncommon Path: What inspired you to create a show that takes place among the redwoods, and what’s your personal relationship with these old-growth trees?
Tina Landau: It was a confluence of events. Idina came to me with an idea about a woman in a tree because she’d been inspired by the real-life story of Julia Butterfly Hill. She was protecting the tree and bringing awareness to the endangerment of our forests.
Idina Menzel: This idea of escaping and being able to leave everything behind when you feel the most alone or misunderstood was an intriguing idea to me. I was inspired by Julia Butterfly Hill—the strength and fortitude it would take to live at the top of a redwood tree, that’s what appealed to me at first.
TL: I’d always been obsessed with trees, and I was exploring the idea of a musical based on Italo Calvino’s book The Baron in the Trees. During the same time, I also made several trips to the [northern California] redwoods—and my life was forever changed. I was awed by their size and age and majesty but, more significantly, I learned astonishing things about them. The more I learned about how they grow, survive, resist fire, have communal roots systems, the more I wanted to share their wonders with everyone in the world!
The two of you first discussed this idea almost 15 years ago, before finally picking it back up during the COVID-19 pandemic. That decade and a half, of course, has been a period of tremendous environmental change and challenge worldwide. How has the story changed—and how has it changed you—over that time?
IM: It’s changed so much over the years. As this story started to take shape, I fell in love with the redwoods as a true testament to resilience, standing strong for thousands of years. We’ve done many trips up to northern California to actually climb the trees and experience things firsthand, and it’s absolutely changed my perspective on the story that we are trying to tell. One way we’ve been prepping for this show is by learning to climb (and the whole cast is now certified climbers!), which has allowed me to fully immerse myself in Jesse’s life and story.
TL: So much has been discovered about redwoods [throughout the show’s development] and I continue making little adjustments in the script based on recent science and new things I learn. Like most of our planet, redwoods have become increasingly threatened by climate change—but it’s also become clear how redwoods are our great allies in fighting climate change. Old-growth, coastal redwoods capture more carbon dioxide from power plants, trucks, cars and the like than any other trees on earth—about triple the amount that tropical rain forests do. Learning this, I adjusted our scientist characters’ work so they’re now studying carbon sequestration. How could this not be part of our story?
While conducting research for the show, were you able to partner with any activists or scientists working toward the conservation of old-growth trees?
IM: While creating the show, we worked closely with thought leaders from organizations who are doing amazing work in the environmental protection space. I had a magical day with a man named Tim Kovar from Tree Climbing Planet, who is one of the few people permitted to go into the canopy of a redwood, and he took me up there and taught me even more about the redwoods. In return, I sang for him.
TL: I have a video of her singing songs from the show while perching on a branch 200 feet in the air!
Being in nature is such a unique experience that seems hard to recreate inside a Broadway theater. How will you bring the experience of being in the redwoods to the room?
IM: Our set is a super special place and concept. It’s immersive and makes you feel like you are in the middle of these trees, or surrounded by stars, or inside Jesse’s head. It feels like a beautiful daydream.
TL: Ah yes—exactly! We know we could never recreate the redwood forest inside a theater, so we’re not even trying to. What we are trying to capture is the experience of that world through the eyes and heart and mind of our main character. The audience enters a world, an experience, more than a place. A place, an actual forest, is too literal. Our visuals are more poetic: They are subjective, expansive, surprising, emotional.
Do you hope that the show inspires action to protect the redwoods or other wild and natural spaces in the U.S.?
IM: I hope that by (re)introducing audiences to the redwoods, they leave the show feeling empowered to get involved in activism, environmental or otherwise, and prioritize spending more time in nature.
TL: What our show offers is “getting up closer and personal” with one specific redwood. I hope that by knowing redwoods better, our audiences will be more inclined to check out our list of resources, get involved, do more research on their own, spend more time in nature.
What do you hope audiences take away from the musical?
TL: A sense of their connection to others and to nature. An awareness of how much we all need to link together, as the roots of the redwoods do, and rely on each other to stand tall. Also, inspiration to live, as one of the songs says, “big and full and deep,” and remember that no matter how much pain or obstacle comes our way: “There’s still the light / There’s still the sky / There’s still the leaves / That rustle in the breeze.”
IM: My hope is that audiences leave the theater feeling a little bit closer to those around them and take solace in the idea of grounding yourself in nature.
Advocate for Nature’s Healing Powers
For 87 years, REI Co-op Members have advocated for life outdoors. The co-op is proud to partner with Redwood to help bring the power of nature alive both inside and outside the theater. Join the REI Cooperative Action Network to ensure everyone can access the healing power of nature. Visit REI.com/redwood to support research that advances and communicates the understanding of the health benefits related to engaging with nature.