title: Steve-O

text: Steve-O later told Comedy Digital Radio station Barry that he has never seen the MTV documentary. "When I saw the footage of myself doing drugs I felt like I could see them, I could taste them. It made me crave them and as embarrassing as that footage is, that just seemed like another reason to get high. I couldn't watch it; I haven't watched it since then. The producers put it all together and finished it up without any input for me, it's better that way."


title: Steve-O

text: Steve-O was part of "Jackass 3D", the third installment of the "Jackass" series, released in October 2010. The movie was in 3D and began production on January 25, 2010. In late May 2010, Knoxville has stated that Steve-O's sobriety is at its best and "There is no beer on set this time around even if some of us wish there was". He also said "And to be honest it's going great. Everyone has had different injuries throughout which is a good sign and Steve-O is probably getting the best footage out of everybody. He is really going for it. He wants to prove to everyone he can do these stunts sober. It's been two years since he had a drink now. Everyone has been real supportive of him.".


title: Steve-O

text: When "Jackass 3D" was released in 2010, the movie broke box office records. In promoting the movie, he appeared on "The Howard Stern Show", lighting himself on fire. In reaction, Howard Stern yelled: "Put him out! Put his head out! Fucking maniac! Oh my god, you're a maniac! You're a goddamn maniac!"


title: Steve-O

text: In November 2010, Steve-O began touring the United States performing stand-up comedy on what he called "Steve-O's Entirely Too Much Information Tour". In early 2011, he announced a nine-month-long American comedy tour. He appeared in "Jackass 3.5", which was released in April 2011.


title: Steve-O

text: On March 27, 2011, Steve-O was arrested by Canadian authorities at Calgary airport. Officers found an arrest warrant filed in 2003. Steve-O was accused of assault with a weapon. He was released after paying a caution of $10,000. Before his arrest, Steve-O spoke about


title: Steve-O

text: In May 2011, he took his stand-up show to Australia, playing a show in all the major cities. In an interview with Comedy Digital Radio station Barry, Steve-O explained the genesis of his comedy tour, "Someone invited me to a famous comedy club in Los Angeles and they asked that I get on stage and do something outrageous. When I got to that comedy club I looked around and it occurred to me that the craziest thing I could possibly do by far would be to try stand-up comedy. Like, that was genuinely the most terrifying, outlandish just crazy thing that I could do."


title: Steve-O

text: On September 13, 2011, during a taping of the "Comedy Central Roast" of Charlie Sheen, Steve-O joked, "The last time this many nobodies were at a roast, at least Great White was playing". Steve-O has since apologized for the comment and requested that it be removed from the broadcast of the roast. During the taping of the roast, Steve-O attempted to run into the fist of boxer Mike Tyson, but the first attempt did not work. Later, at the end of the roast, Steve-O made another attempt and this time connected, resulting in Steve-O getting a broken nose. He also claimed to have been sober and clean for three and a half years. Steve-O was also shown to be visibly upset by Amy Schumer's joke about Ryan Dunn's passing, but later stated he was not offended by the joke.


title: Steve-O

text: It was announced on October 3, 2011, that Steve-O would be hosting truTV's new reality game show "Killer Karaoke", the American version of the British competition show "Sing If You Can". The show first aired at 9p.m. EST on November 23, 2012.


title: Steve-O

text: He told "US Weekly" in November 2012 that he credited his two rescue dogs, Walter and Bernie, with helping him to maintain nearly five years of sobriety.


title: Steve-O

text: Despite joining in 2005, Steve-O did not regularly upload on his YouTube channel of the same name and other channels until 2013. His main channel "SteveO" has amassed over 6.05 million subscribers as of February 2022.


title: Steve-O

text: In 2014, Steve-O narrated a short video titled "What Came Before, featuring Steve-O: The Truth About Meat and Modern Farms", which was about some of the individual animals rescued by Farm Sanctuary. He also reveals the life of the less fortunate animals that are born into modern farming in the US.


title: Steve-O

text: In December 2014, Steve-O was announced as one of the competitors in the second series of British TV show "The Jump". He was the ninth contestant eliminated.


title: Steve-O

text: On August 9, 2015, Steve-O climbed a construction crane in Los Angeles in a protest against SeaWorld. He lit fireworks and inflated a large whale blow-up doll on top of the crane. He broadcast the stunt on his Facebook page, resulting in LAPD and EMS responding with no knowledge of the stunt going on, and later was arrested after climbing down on charges of trespassing. Fans began a GoFundMe campaign for his bail. For the protest, Steve-O was convicted of two misdemeanors and sentenced to 30 days of jail time and 36 months of probation. Steve-O later admitted that the stunt was poorly thought out as he was nowhere near a SeaWorld. He claims he told his attorney to get jail time because it would increase the publicity and make a statement about captivity. He started his jail time on December 9, 2015. He is quoted saying "I mean, if your goal is to make a statement about captivity, you may as well get yourself locked up!" Steve-O was released from jail after serving just eight hours in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. In 2016, he released his first stand-up comedy special, "Guilty as Charged".


title: Steve-O

text: On March 9, 2018, Steve-O marked 10 years of sobriety. On the September 2, 2020 episode 261 of the "TigerBelly", Steve-O discusses his work in the 12 step program, especially to address a sex addiction.


title: Steve-O

text: On March 19, 2020, Steve-O started his own podcast titled "Steve-O's Wild Ride!". He hosts this podcast along with Scott Randolph and Paul Brisske.


title: Steve-O

text: "Gnarly" is Steve-O's second stand-up comedy special at the Gothic Theatre in Denver, Colorado. He presented stories, stunts and previously unseen footage to the audience. The special marks the first time the entire cast of "Jackass" reunited after the death of Ryan Dunn. It was released on July 18, 2020 and is available to watch on Steve-O's website.


title: Steve-O

text: During the first two days of production for "Jackass Forever" (2022), both Steve-O and Johnny Knoxville were hospitalized. On December 15, 2020, it was publicly announced that Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O were hospitalized due to on-set injuries. Steve-O also broke his collarbone, but that bit was cut out of the movie. He served as a co-producer on "Jackass Forever", and "Jackass 4.5" (2022).


title: Steve-O

text: On July 11, 2021, during "Shark Week", the Discovery Channel aired "Jackass Shark Week". It featured Steve-O as well as other "Jackass" cast members including Knoxville, Chris Pontius, and new cast members Sean "Poopies" McInerney and Jasper Dolphin.


title: Steve-O

text: In 2021, Steve-O started going on tour throughout the United States. This tour, titled "The Bucket List Tour", features Steve-O telling stories and showing stunts that he wasn't allowed to do for "Jackass". He occasionally brings other "Jackass" members as guests for his live shows.


title: Steve-O

text: On April 12, 2022, Steve-O announced the title of his new book as "A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I've Learned From a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions", which was released on September 27, 2022.


title: Steve-O

text: Steve-O is known for his distinctive gravelly voice, which he initially attributed to his drug use and various stunts he's done over the years. After visiting a specialist, however, he was surprised to learn that it is simply because of his habit of using his throat muscles to talk, rather than his vocal cords.


title: Steve-O

text: In 2010, it was reported that Steve-O had become a vegan for both health and compassionate reasons. He stated that "being vegan, I can tell you, has benefited every single area of my life". After the "Jackass 3D" stunt involving a ram (during which he injured his hand), he has expressed some concern about doing stunts in the future that "mess with animals."


title: Steve-O

text: In June 2011, Steve-O released an autobiography entitled "Professional Idiot: A Memoir", co-written with David Peisner. He stated that he follows only a strict vegan diet and is one of the many celebrities that got involved in the NOH8 project. In July, he received PETA's Nanci Alexander award for his "voice against cruelty." In 2013, due to his concern about animal rights, he stated that he was eating a vegan diet, and that he did not wear fur or leather.


title: Steve-O

text: In December 2018, Steve-O revealed that he was no longer a vegan as he consumes fish and is a pescatarian. In 2019, Steve-O spoke out against "militant" vegans, stating they do more harm than good.


title: Steve-O

text: Steve-O spoke about his family life on the September 2, 2020, episode 261 of the podcast "TigerBelly" with Bobby Lee and Khalyla Kuhn. Steve-O reveals that his mother suffered an aneurysm on October 10, 1998, which was before his rise to fame. Steve-O stated that she suffered major cognitive and physical disability as a result of the aneurysm, and died in 2003.


title: Steve-O

text: His father, despite being divorced from Steve-O's mother, returned from England when she suffered an aneurysm. On the "TigerBelly" podcast, Steve-O describes his father taking a moment outside the hospital to express regret for not fully supporting Steve-O's unconventional career path. Up to that point, Steve-O had not yet seen the success that the "Jackass" series would bring, and was a contrast to the corporate leadership career his father followed.


title: Football

text: Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word "football" normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called "football" include association football (known as "soccer" in North America and Australia); gridiron football (specifically American football or Canadian football); Australian rules football; rugby union and rugby league; and Gaelic football. These various forms of football share to varying extent common origins and are known as "football codes".


title: Football

text: There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games played in many different parts of the world. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the 19th century. The expansion and cultural influence of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside the directly controlled Empire. By the end of the 19th century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage. In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football associations. During the 20th century, several of the various kinds of football grew to become some of the most popular team sports in the world.


title: Football

text: The various codes of football share certain common elements and can be grouped into two main classes of football: "carrying" codes like American football, Canadian football, Australian football, rugby union and rugby league, where the ball is moved about the field while being held in the hands or thrown, and "kicking" codes such as Association football and Gaelic football, where the ball is moved primarily with the feet, and where handling is strictly limited.


title: Football

text: In all codes, common skills include passing, tackling, evasion of tackles, catching and kicking. In most codes, there are rules restricting the movement of players "offside", and players scoring a goal must put the ball either under or over a "crossbar" between the goalposts.


title: Football

text: There are conflicting explanations of the origin of the word "football". It is widely assumed that the word "football" (or the phrase "foot ball") refers to the action of the foot kicking a ball. There is an alternative explanation, which is that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played "on foot". There is no conclusive evidence for either explanation.


title: Football

text: The Chinese competitive game "cuju" (蹴鞠) resembles modern association football (soccer), descriptions appear in a military manual dated to the second and third centuries BC. It existed during the Han dynasty and possibly the Qin dynasty, in the second and third centuries BC. The Japanese version of "cuju" is "kemari" (蹴鞠), and was developed during the Asuka period. This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD. In "kemari" several people stand in a circle and kick a ball to each other, trying not to let the ball drop to the ground (much like keepie uppie).


title: Football

text: The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of the feet. The Roman game "harpastum" is believed to have been adapted from a Greek team game known as "ἐπίσκυρος" ("Episkyros") or "φαινίνδα" ("phaininda"), which is mentioned by a Greek playwright, Antiphanes (388–311 BC) and later referred to by the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215 AD). These games appear to have resembled rugby football. The Roman politician Cicero (106–43 BC) describes the case of a man who was killed whilst having a shave when a ball was kicked into a barber's shop. Roman ball games already knew the air-filled ball, the follis. "Episkyros" is recognised as an early form of football by FIFA.


title: Football

text: There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit in Greenland. There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called "Aqsaqtuk". Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey, a colonist at Jamestown, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called "Pahsaheman". "Pasuckuakohowog", a game similar to modern-day association football played amongst Amerindians, was also reported as early as the 17th century.


title: Football

text: Games played in Mesoamerica with rubber balls by indigenous peoples are also well-documented as existing since before this time, but these had more similarities to basketball or volleyball, and no links have been found between such games and modern football sports. Northeastern American Indians, especially the Iroquois Confederation, played a game which made use of net racquets to throw and catch a small ball; however, although it is a ball-goal foot game, lacrosse (as its modern descendant is called) is likewise not usually classed as a form of "football."


title: Football

text: On the Australian continent several tribes of indigenous people played kicking and catching games with stuffed balls which have been generalised by historians as "Marn Grook" (Djab Wurrung for "game ball"). The earliest historical account is an anecdote from the 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, "The Aborigines of Victoria", in which a man called Richard Thomas is quoted as saying, in about 1841 in Victoria, Australia, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." Some historians have theorised that "Marn Grook" was one of the origins of Australian rules football.


title: Football

text: The Māori in New Zealand played a game called Ki-o-rahi consisting of teams of seven players play on a circular field divided into zones, and score points by touching the 'pou' (boundary markers) and hitting a central 'tupu' or target.


title: Football

text: These games and others may well go far back into antiquity. However, the main sources of modern football codes appear to lie in western Europe, especially England.


title: Football

text: Mahmud al-Kashgari in his "Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk", described a game called "tepuk" among Turks in Central Asia. In the game, people try to attack each other's castle by kicking a ball made of sheep leather.


title: Football

text: The Middle Ages saw a huge rise in popularity of annual Shrovetide football matches throughout Europe, particularly in England. An early reference to a ball game played in Britain comes from the 9th-century "Historia Brittonum", attributed to Nennius, which describes "a party of boys ... playing at ball". References to a ball game played in northern France known as "La Soule" or "Choule", in which the ball was propelled by hands, feet, and sticks, date from the 12th century.


title: Football

text: The early forms of football played in England, sometimes referred to as "mob football", would be played in towns or between neighbouring villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams who would clash "en masse", struggling to move an item, such as inflated animal's bladder to particular geographical points, such as their opponents' church, with play taking place in the open space between neighbouring parishes. The game was played primarily during significant religious festivals, such as Shrovetide, Christmas, or Easter, and Shrovetide games have survived into the modern era in a number of English towns (see below).


title: Football

text: The first detailed description of what was almost certainly football in England was given by William FitzStephen in about 1174–1183. He described the activities of London youths during the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday:


title: Football

text: Most of the very early references to the game speak simply of "ball play" or "playing at ball". This reinforces the idea that the games played at the time did not necessarily involve a ball being kicked.


title: Football

text: An early reference to a ball game that was probably football comes from 1280 at Ulgham, Northumberland, England: "Henry... while playing at ball.. ran against David". Football was played in Ireland in 1308, with a documented reference to John McCrocan, a spectator at a "football game" at Newcastle, County Down being charged with accidentally stabbing a player named William Bernard. Another reference to a football game comes in 1321 at Shouldham, Norfolk, England: "[d]uring the game at ball as he kicked the ball, a lay friend of his... ran against him and wounded himself".


title: Football

text: In 1314, Nicholas de Farndone, Lord Mayor of the City of London issued a decree banning football in the French used by the English upper classes at the time. A translation reads: "[f]orasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large foot balls ["rageries de grosses pelotes de pee"] in the fields of the public from which many evils might arise which God forbid: we command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future." This is the earliest reference to football.


title: Football

text: In 1363, King Edward III of England issued a proclamation banning "...handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games", showing that "football" – whatever its exact form in this case – was being differentiated from games involving other parts of the body, such as handball.


title: Football

text: A game known as "football" was played in Scotland as early as the 15th century: it was prohibited by the Football Act 1424 and although the law fell into disuse it was not repealed until 1906. There is evidence for schoolboys playing a "football" ball game in Aberdeen in 1633 (some references cite 1636) which is notable as an early allusion to what some have considered to be passing the ball. The word "pass" in the most recent translation is derived from "huc percute" (strike it here) and later "repercute pilam" (strike the ball again) in the original Latin. It is not certain that the ball was being struck between members of the same team. The original word translated as "goal" is "metum", literally meaning the "pillar at each end of the circus course" in a Roman chariot race. There is a reference to "get hold of the ball before [another player] does" (Praeripe illi pilam si possis agere) suggesting that handling of the ball was allowed. One sentence states in the original 1930 translation "Throw yourself against him" (Age, objice te illi).


title: Football

text: King Henry IV of England also presented one of the earliest documented uses of the English word "football", in 1409, when he issued a proclamation forbidding the levying of money for "foteball".


title: Football

text: There is also an account in Latin from the end of the 15th century of football being played at Caunton, Nottinghamshire. This is the first description of a "kicking game" and the first description of dribbling: "[t]he game at which they had met for common recreation is called by some the foot-ball game. It is one in which young men, in country sport, propel a huge ball not by throwing it into the air but by striking it and rolling it along the ground, and that not with their hands but with their feet... kicking in opposite directions." The chronicler gives the earliest reference to a football pitch, stating that: "[t]he boundaries have been marked and the game had started.


title: Football

text: In the 16th century, the city of Florence celebrated the period between Epiphany and Lent by playing a game which today is known as ""calcio storico"" ("historic kickball") in the Piazza Santa Croce. The young aristocrats of the city would dress up in fine silk costumes and embroil themselves in a violent form of football. For example, "calcio" players could punch, shoulder charge, and kick opponents. Blows below the belt were allowed. The game is said to have originated as a military training exercise. In 1580, Count Giovanni de' Bardi di Vernio wrote "Discorso sopra 'l giuoco del Calcio Fiorentino". This is sometimes said to be the earliest code of rules for any football game. The game was not played after January 1739 (until it was revived in May 1930).


title: Football

text: There have been many attempts to ban football, from the middle ages through to the modern day. The first such law was passed in England in 1314; it was followed by more than 30 in England alone between 1314 and 1667. Women were banned from playing at English and Scottish Football League grounds in 1921, a ban that was only lifted in the 1970s. Female footballers still face similar problems in some parts of the world.


title: Football

text: American football also faced pressures to ban the sport. The game played in the 19th century resembled mob football that developed in medieval Europe, including a version popular on university campuses known as Old division football, and several municipalities banned its play in the mid-19th century. By the 20th century, the game had evolved to a more rugby style game. In 1905, there were calls to ban American football in the U.S. due to its violence; a meeting that year was hosted by American president Theodore Roosevelt led to sweeping rules changes that caused the sport to diverge significantly from its rugby roots to become more like the sport as it is played today.


title: Football

text: While football continued to be played in various forms throughout Britain, its public schools (equivalent to private schools in other countries) are widely credited with four key achievements in the creation of modern football codes. First of all, the evidence suggests that they were important in taking football away from its "mob" form and turning it into an organised team sport. Second, many early descriptions of football and references to it were recorded by people who had studied at these schools. Third, it was teachers, students, and former students from these schools who first codified football games, to enable matches to be played between schools. Finally, it was at English public schools that the division between "kicking" and "running" (or "carrying") games first became clear.


title: Football

text: The earliest evidence that games resembling football were being played at English public schools – mainly attended by boys from the upper, upper-middle and professional classes – comes from the "Vulgaria" by William Herman in 1519. Herman had been headmaster at Eton and Winchester colleges and his Latin textbook includes a translation exercise with the phrase "We wyll playe with a ball full of wynde".


title: Football

text: Richard Mulcaster, a student at Eton College in the early 16th century and later headmaster at other English schools, has been described as "the greatest sixteenth Century advocate of football". Among his contributions are the earliest evidence of organised team football. Mulcaster's writings refer to teams ("sides" and "parties"), positions ("standings"), a referee ("judge over the parties") and a coach "(trayning maister)". Mulcaster's "footeball" had evolved from the disordered and violent forms of traditional football:


title: Football

text: In 1633, David Wedderburn, a teacher from Aberdeen, mentioned elements of modern football games in a short Latin textbook called "Vocabula." Wedderburn refers to what has been translated into modern English as "keeping goal" and makes an allusion to passing the ball ("strike it here"). There is a reference to "get hold of the ball", suggesting that some handling was allowed. It is clear that the tackles allowed included the charging and holding of opposing players ("drive that man back").


title: Football

text: A more detailed description of football is given in Francis Willughby's "Book of Games", written in about 1660. Willughby, who had studied at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, Sutton Coldfield, is the first to describe goals and a distinct playing field: "a close that has a gate at either end. The gates are called Goals." His book includes a diagram illustrating a football field. He also mentions tactics ("leaving some of their best players to guard the goal"); scoring ("they that can strike the ball through their opponents' goal first win") and the way teams were selected ("the players being equally divided according to their strength and nimbleness"). He is the first to describe a "law" of football: "they must not strike [an opponent's leg] higher than the ball".


title: Football

text: English public schools were the first to codify football games. In particular, they devised the first "offside" rules, during the late 18th century. In the earliest manifestations of these rules, players were "off their side" if they simply stood between the ball and the goal which was their objective. Players were not allowed to pass the ball forward, either by foot or by hand. They could only dribble with their feet, or advance the ball in a "scrum" or similar "formation". However, offside laws began to diverge and develop differently at each school, as is shown by the rules of football from Winchester, Rugby, Harrow and Cheltenham, during between 1810 and 1850. The first known codes – in the sense of a set of rules – were those of Eton in 1815 and Aldenham in 1825.)


title: Football

text: During the early 19th century, most working-class people in Britain had to work six days a week, often for over twelve hours a day. They had neither the time nor the inclination to engage in sport for recreation and, at the time, many children were part of the labour force. Feast day football played on the streets was in decline. Public school boys, who enjoyed some freedom from work, became the inventors of organised football games with formal codes of rules.


title: Football

text: Football was adopted by a number of public schools as a way of encouraging competitiveness and keeping youths fit. Each school drafted its own rules, which varied widely between different schools and were changed over time with each new intake of pupils. Two schools of thought developed regarding rules. Some schools favoured a game in which the ball could be carried (as at Rugby, Marlborough and Cheltenham), while others preferred a game where kicking and dribbling the ball was promoted (as at Eton, Harrow, Westminster and Charterhouse). The division into these two camps was partly the result of circumstances in which the games were played. For example, Charterhouse and Westminster at the time had restricted playing areas; the boys were confined to playing their ball game within the school cloisters, making it difficult for them to adopt rough and tumble running games.


title: Football

text: William Webb Ellis, a pupil at Rugby School, is said to have "with a fine disregard for the rules of football, "as played in his time" [emphasis added], first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus creating the distinctive feature of the rugby game." in 1823. This act is usually said to be the beginning of Rugby football, but there is little evidence that it occurred, and most sports historians believe the story to be apocryphal. The act of 'taking the ball in his arms' is often misinterpreted as 'picking the ball up' as it is widely believed that Webb Ellis' 'crime' was handling the ball, as in modern association football, however handling the ball at the time was often permitted and in some cases compulsory, the rule for which Webb Ellis showed disregard was "running forward with it" as the rules of his time only allowed a player to retreat backwards or kick forwards.


title: Football

text: The boom in rail transport in Britain during the 1840s meant that people were able to travel further and with less inconvenience than they ever had before. Inter-school sporting competitions became possible. However, it was difficult for schools to play each other at football, as each school played by its own rules. The solution to this problem was usually that the match be divided into two halves, one half played by the rules of the host "home" school, and the other half by the visiting "away" school.


title: Football

text: The "modern" rules of many football codes were formulated during the mid- or late- 19th century. This also applies to other sports such as lawn bowls, lawn tennis, etc. The major impetus for this was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in 1830. This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc.


title: Football

text: Apart from Rugby football, the public school codes have barely been played beyond the confines of each school's playing fields. However, many of them are still played at the schools which created them (see Surviving UK school games below).


title: Football

text: Public schools' dominance of sports in the UK began to wane after the "Factory Act" of 1850, which significantly increased the recreation time available to working class children. Before 1850, many British children had to work six days a week, for more than twelve hours a day. From 1850, they could not work before 6 a.m. (7 a.m. in winter) or after 6 p.m. on weekdays (7 p.m. in winter); on Saturdays they had to cease work at 2 p.m. These changes meant that working class children had more time for games, including various forms of football.


title: Football

text: Sports clubs dedicated to playing football began in the 18th century, for example London's Gymnastic Society which was founded in the mid-18th century and ceased playing matches in 1796.


title: Football

text: The first documented club to bear in the title a reference to being a 'football club' were called "The Foot-Ball Club" who were located in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the period 1824–41. The club forbade tripping but allowed pushing and holding and the picking up of the ball.


title: Football

text: In 1845, three boys at Rugby school were tasked with codifying the rules then being used at the school. These were the first set of written rules (or code) for any form of football. This further assisted the spread of the Rugby game.


title: Football

text: One of the longest running football fixture is the Cordner-Eggleston Cup, contested between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne every year since 1858. It is believed by many to also be the first match of Australian rules football, although it was played under experimental rules in its first year. The first football trophy tournament was the Caledonian Challenge Cup, donated by the Royal Caledonian Society of Melbourne, played in 1861 under the Melbourne Rules. The oldest football league is a rugby football competition, the United Hospitals Challenge Cup (1874), while the oldest rugby trophy is the Yorkshire Cup, contested since 1878. The South Australian Football Association (30 April 1877) is the oldest surviving Australian rules football competition. The oldest surviving soccer trophy is the Youdan Cup (1867) and the oldest national football competition is the English FA Cup (1871). The Football League (1888) is recognised as the longest running Association Football league. The first "ever" international football match took place between sides representing England and Scotland on 5 March 1870 at the Oval under the authority of the FA. The first Rugby international took place in 1871.


title: Football

text: In Europe, early footballs were made out of animal bladders, more specifically pig's bladders, which were inflated. Later leather coverings were introduced to allow the balls to keep their shape. However, in 1851, Richard Lindon and William Gilbert, both shoemakers from the town of Rugby (near the school), exhibited both round and oval-shaped balls at the Great Exhibition in London. Richard Lindon's wife is said to have died of lung disease caused by blowing up pig's bladders. Lindon also won medals for the invention of the "Rubber inflatable Bladder" and the "Brass Hand Pump".


title: Football

text: In 1855, the U.S. inventor Charles Goodyear – who had patented vulcanised rubber – exhibited a spherical football, with an exterior of vulcanised rubber panels, at the Paris "Exhibition Universelle". The ball was to prove popular in early forms of football in the U.S.


title: Football

text: The iconic ball with a regular pattern of hexagons and pentagons (see truncated icosahedron) did not become popular until the 1960s, and was first used in the World Cup in 1970.


title: Football

text: The earliest reference to a game of football involving players passing the ball and attempting to score past a goalkeeper was written in 1633 by David Wedderburn, a poet and teacher in Aberdeen, Scotland. Nevertheless, the original text does not state whether the allusion to passing as 'kick the ball back' ('Repercute pilam') was in a forward or backward direction or between members of the same opposing teams (as was usual at this time)


title: Football

text: "Scientific" football is first recorded in 1839 from Lancashire and in the modern game in Rugby football from 1862 and from Sheffield FC as early as 1865. The first side to play a passing combination game was the Royal Engineers AFC in 1869/70 By 1869 they were "work[ing] well together", "backing up" and benefiting from "cooperation". By 1870 the Engineers were passing the ball: "Lieut. Creswell, who having brought the ball up the side then kicked it into the middle to another of his side, who kicked it through the posts the minute before time was called". Passing was a regular feature of their style. By early 1872 the Engineers were the first football team renowned for "play[ing] beautifully together". A double pass is first reported from Derby school against Nottingham Forest in March 1872, the first of which is irrefutably a "short" pass: "Mr Absey dribbling the ball half the length of the field delivered it to Wallis, who kicking it cleverly in front of the goal, sent it to the captain who drove it at once between the Nottingham posts". The first side to have perfected the modern formation was Cambridge University AFC and introduced the 2–3–5 "pyramid" formation.


title: Football

text: Rugby football was thought to have been started about 1845 at Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, England although forms of football in which the ball was carried and tossed date to medieval times. In Britain, by 1870, there were 49 clubs playing variations of the Rugby school game. There were also "rugby" clubs in Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. However, there was no generally accepted set of rules for rugby until 1871, when 21 clubs from London came together to form the Rugby Football Union (RFU). The first official RFU rules were adopted in June 1871. These rules allowed passing the ball. They also included the try, where touching the ball over the line allowed an attempt at goal, though drop-goals from marks and general play, and penalty conversions were still the main form of contest. Regardless of any form of football, the first international match between the national team of England and Scotland took place at Raeburn Place on 27 March 1871.


title: Football

text: Rugby football split into Rugby union, Rugby league, American football, and Canadian football. Tom Wills played Rugby football in England before founding Australian rules football.


title: Football

text: During the nineteenth century, several codifications of the rules of football were made at the University of Cambridge, in order to enable students from different public schools to play each other. The Cambridge Rules of 1863 influenced the decision of Football Association to ban Rugby-style carrying of the ball in its own first set of laws.


title: Football

text: By the late 1850s, many football clubs had been formed throughout the English-speaking world, to play various codes of football. Sheffield Football Club, founded in 1857 in the English city of Sheffield by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, was later recognised as the world's oldest club playing association football.


title: Football

text: However, the club initially played its own code of football: the "Sheffield rules". The code was largely independent of the public school rules, the most significant difference being the lack of an "offside" rule.


title: Football

text: The code was responsible for many innovations that later spread to association football. These included free kicks, corner kicks, handball, throw-ins and the crossbar. By the 1870s they became the dominant code in the north and midlands of England. At this time a series of rule changes by both the London and Sheffield FAs gradually eroded the differences between the two games until the adoption of a common code in 1877.


title: Football

text: There is archival evidence of "foot-ball" games being played in various parts of Australia throughout the first half of the 19th century. The origins of an organised game of football known today as Australian rules football can be traced back to 1858 in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria.


title: Football

text: In July 1858, Tom Wills, an Australian-born cricketer educated at Rugby School in England, wrote a letter to "Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle", calling for a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter. This is considered by historians to be a defining moment in the creation of Australian rules football. Through publicity and personal contacts Wills was able to co-ordinate football matches in Melbourne that experimented with various rules, the first of which was played on 31 July 1858. One week later, Wills umpired a schoolboys match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College. Following these matches, organised football in Melbourne rapidly increased in popularity.


title: Football

text: Wills and others involved in these early matches formed the Melbourne Football Club (the oldest surviving Australian football club) on 14 May 1859. Club members Wills, William Hammersley, J. B. Thompson and Thomas H. Smith met with the intention of forming a set of rules that would be widely adopted by other clubs. The committee debated rules used in English public school games; Wills pushed for various rugby football rules he learnt during his schooling. The first rules share similarities with these games, and were shaped to suit to Australian conditions. H. C. A. Harrison, a seminal figure in Australian football, recalled that his cousin Wills wanted "a game of our own". The code was distinctive in the prevalence of the mark, free kick, tackling, lack of an offside rule and that players were specifically penalised for throwing the ball.


title: Football

text: The Melbourne football rules were widely distributed and gradually adopted by the other Victorian clubs. The rules were updated several times during the 1860s to accommodate the rules of other influential Victorian football clubs. A significant redraft in 1866 by H. C. A. Harrison's committee accommodated the Geelong Football Club's rules, making the game then known as "Victorian Rules" increasingly distinct from other codes. It soon adopted cricket fields and an oval ball, used specialised goal and behind posts, and featured bouncing the ball while running and spectacular high marking. The game spread quickly to other Australian colonies. Outside its heartland in southern Australia, the code experienced a significant period of decline following World War I but has since grown throughout Australia and in other parts of the world, and the Australian Football League emerged as the dominant professional competition.


title: Football

text: During the early 1860s, there were increasing attempts in England to unify and reconcile the various public school games. In 1862, J. C. Thring, who had been one of the driving forces behind the original Cambridge Rules, was a master at Uppingham School and he issued his own rules of what he called "The Simplest Game" (these are also known as the Uppingham Rules). In early October 1863 another new revised version of the Cambridge Rules was drawn up by a seven member committee representing former pupils from Harrow, Shrewsbury, Eton, Rugby, Marlborough and Westminster.


title: Football

text: At the Freemasons' Tavern, Great Queen Street, London on the evening of 26 October 1863, representatives of several football clubs in the London Metropolitan area met for the inaugural meeting of The Football Association (FA). The aim of the Association was to establish a single unifying code and regulate the playing of the game among its members. Following the first meeting, the public schools were invited to join the association. All of them declined, except Charterhouse and Uppingham. In total, six meetings of the FA were held between October and December 1863. After the third meeting, a draft set of rules were published. However, at the beginning of the fourth meeting, attention was drawn to the recently published Cambridge Rules of 1863. The Cambridge rules differed from the draft FA rules in two significant areas; namely running with (carrying) the ball and hacking (kicking opposing players in the shins). The two contentious FA rules were as follows:


title: Football

text: At the fifth meeting it was proposed that these two rules be removed. Most of the delegates supported this, but F. M. Campbell, the representative from Blackheath and the first FA treasurer, objected. He said: "hacking is the true football". However, the motion to ban running with the ball in hand and hacking was carried and Blackheath withdrew from the FA. After the final meeting on 8 December, the FA published the "Laws of Football", the first comprehensive set of rules for the game later known as Association Football. The term "soccer", in use since the late 19th century, derives from an Oxford University abbreviation of "Association".


title: Football

text: The first FA rules still contained elements that are no longer part of association football, but which are still recognisable in other games (such as Australian football and rugby football): for instance, a player could make a fair catch and claim a "mark", which entitled him to a free kick; and if a player touched the ball behind the opponents' goal line, his side was entitled to a "free kick" at goal, from 15 yards (13.5 metres) in front of the goal line.


title: Football

text: As was the case in Britain, by the early 19th century, North American schools and universities played their own local games, between sides made up of students. For example, students at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire played a game called Old division football, a variant of the association football codes, as early as the 1820s. They remained largely "mob football" style games, with huge numbers of players attempting to advance the ball into a goal area, often by any means necessary. Rules were simple, violence and injury were common. The violence of these mob-style games led to widespread protests and a decision to abandon them. Yale University, under pressure from the city of New Haven, banned the play of all forms of football in 1860, while Harvard University followed suit in 1861. In its place, two general types of football evolved: "kicking" games and "running" (or "carrying") games. A hybrid of the two, known as the "Boston game", was played by a group known as the Oneida Football Club. The club, considered by some historians as the first formal football club in the United States, was formed in 1862 by schoolboys who played the Boston game on Boston Common. The game began to return to American college campuses by the late 1860s. The universities of Yale, Princeton (then known as the College of New Jersey), Rutgers, and Brown all began playing "kicking" games during this time. In 1867, Princeton used rules based on those of the English Football Association.


title: Football

text: In Canada, the first documented football match was a practice game played on 9 November 1861, at University College, University of Toronto (approximately 400 yards west of Queen's Park). One of the participants in the game involving University of Toronto students was (Sir) William Mulock, later Chancellor of the school. In 1864, at Trinity College, Toronto, F. Barlow Cumberland, Frederick A. Bethune, and Christopher Gwynn, one of the founders of Milton, Massachusetts, devised rules based on rugby football. A "running game", resembling rugby football, was then taken up by the Montreal Football Club in Canada in 1868.


title: Football

text: On 6 November 1869, Rutgers faced Princeton in a game that was played with a round ball and, like all early games, used improvised rules. It is usually regarded as the first game of American intercollegiate football.


title: Football

text: Modern North American football grew out of a match between McGill University of Montreal and Harvard University in 1874. During the game, the two teams alternated between the rugby-based rules used by McGill and the Boston Game rules used by Harvard. Within a few years, Harvard had both adopted McGill's rules and persuaded other U.S. university teams to do the same. On 23 November 1876, representatives from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia met at the Massasoit Convention in Springfield, Massachusetts, agreeing to adopt most of the Rugby Football Union rules, with some variations.


title: Football

text: In 1880, Yale coach Walter Camp, who had become a fixture at the Massasoit House conventions where the rules were debated and changed, devised a number of major innovations. Camp's two most important rule changes that diverged the American game from rugby were replacing the scrummage with the "line of scrimmage" and the establishment of the "down-and-distance" rules. American football still however remained a violent sport where collisions often led to serious injuries and sometimes even death. This led U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to hold a meeting with football representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton on 9 October 1905, urging them to make drastic changes. One rule change introduced in 1906, devised to open up the game and reduce injury, was the introduction of the legal forward pass. Though it was underutilised for years, this proved to be one of the most important rule changes in the establishment of the modern game.


title: Football

text: Over the years, Canada absorbed some of the developments in American football in an effort to distinguish it from a more rugby-oriented game. In 1903, the Ontario Rugby Football Union adopted the Burnside rules, which implemented the "line of scrimmage" and "down-and-distance" system from American football, among others. Canadian football then implemented the legal forward pass in 1929. American and Canadian football remain different codes, stemming from rule changes that the American side of the border adopted but the Canadian side has not.


title: Football

text: In the mid-19th century, various traditional football games, referred to collectively as "caid", remained popular in Ireland, especially in County Kerry. One observer, Father W. Ferris, described two main forms of "caid" during this period: the "field game" in which the object was to put the ball through arch-like goals, formed from the boughs of two trees; and the epic "cross-country game" which took up most of the daylight hours of a Sunday on which it was played, and was won by one team taking the ball across a parish boundary. "Wrestling", "holding" opposing players, and carrying the ball were all allowed.


title: Football

text: By the 1870s, Rugby and Association football had started to become popular in Ireland. Trinity College Dublin was an early stronghold of Rugby (see the Developments in the 1850s section, above). The rules of the English FA were being distributed widely. Traditional forms of "caid" had begun to give way to a "rough-and-tumble game" which allowed tripping.


title: Football

text: There was no serious attempt to unify and codify Irish varieties of football, until the establishment of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in 1884. The GAA sought to promote traditional Irish sports, such as hurling and to reject imported games like Rugby and Association football. The first Gaelic football rules were drawn up by Maurice Davin and published in the "United Ireland" magazine on 7 February 1887. Davin's rules showed the influence of games such as hurling and a desire to formalise a distinctly Irish code of football. The prime example of this differentiation was the lack of an offside rule (an attribute which, for many years, was shared only by other Irish games like hurling, and by Australian rules football).


title: Football

text: The International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) was founded in 1886, but rifts were beginning to emerge in the code. Professionalism had already begun to creep into the various codes of football.


title: Football

text: In England, by the 1890s, a long-standing Rugby Football Union ban on "professional" players was causing regional tensions within rugby football, as many players in northern England were working class and could not afford to take time off to train, travel, play and recover from injuries. This was not very different from what had occurred ten years earlier in soccer in Northern England but the authorities reacted very differently in the RFU, attempting to alienate the working class support in Northern England. In 1895, following a dispute about a player being paid broken time payments, which replaced wages lost as a result of playing rugby, representatives of the northern clubs met in Huddersfield to form the Northern Rugby Football Union (NRFU). The new body initially permitted only various types of player wage replacements. However, within two years, NRFU players could be paid, but they were required to have a job outside sport.


title: Football

text: The demands of a professional league dictated that rugby had to become a better "spectator" sport. Within a few years the NRFU rules had started to diverge from the RFU, most notably with the abolition of the "line-out". This was followed by the replacement of the "ruck" with the "play-the-ball ruck", which allowed a two-player ruck contest between the tackler at marker and the player tackled. "Mauls" were stopped once the ball carrier was held, being replaced by a play-the ball-ruck. The separate Lancashire and Yorkshire competitions of the NRFU merged in 1901, forming the Northern Rugby League, the first time the name rugby league was used officially in England.


title: Football

text: Over time, the RFU form of rugby, played by clubs which remained members of national federations affiliated to the IRFB, became known as rugby union.


title: Football

text: The need for a single body to oversee association football had become apparent by the beginning of the 20th century, with the increasing popularity of international fixtures. The English Football Association had chaired many discussions on setting up an international body, but was perceived as making no progress. It fell to associations from seven other European countries: France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, to form an international association. The "Fédération Internationale de Football Association" (FIFA) was founded in Paris on 21 May 1904. Its first president was Robert Guérin. The French name and acronym has remained, even outside French-speaking countries.


title: Football

text: Rugby league rules diverged significantly from rugby union in 1906, with the reduction of the team from 15 to 13 players. In 1907, a New Zealand professional rugby team toured Australia and Britain, receiving an enthusiastic response, and professional rugby leagues were launched in Australia the following year. However, the rules of professional games varied from one country to another, and negotiations between various national bodies were required to fix the exact rules for each international match. This situation endured until 1948, when at the instigation of the French league, the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) was formed at a meeting in Bordeaux.


title: Football

text: During the second half of the 20th century, the rules changed further. In 1966, rugby league officials borrowed the American football concept of "downs": a team was allowed to retain possession of the ball for four tackles (rugby union retains the original rule that a player who is tackled and brought to the ground must release the ball immediately). The maximum number of tackles was later increased to six (in 1971), and in rugby league this became known as the "six tackle rule".


title: Football

text: With the advent of full-time professionals in the early 1990s, and the consequent speeding up of the game, the five metre off-side distance between the two teams became 10 metres, and the replacement rule was superseded by various interchange rules, among other changes.


title: Football

text: The laws of rugby union also changed during the 20th century, although less significantly than those of rugby league. In particular, goals from "marks" were abolished, kicks directly "into touch" from outside the "22 metre" line were penalised, new laws were put in place to determine who had possession following an inconclusive "ruck" or "maul", and the lifting of players in "line-outs" was legalised.


title: Football

text: In 1995, rugby union became an "open" game, that is one which allowed professional players. Although the original dispute between the two codes has now disappeared – and despite the fact that officials from both forms of rugby football have sometimes mentioned the possibility of re-unification – the rules of both codes and their culture have diverged to such an extent that such an event is unlikely in the foreseeable future.


title: Football

text: The word "football", when used in reference to a specific game can mean any one of those described above. Because of this, much controversy has occurred over the term "football", primarily because it is used in different ways in different parts of the English-speaking world. Most often, the word "football" is used to refer to the code of football that is considered dominant within a particular region (which is association football in most countries). So, effectively, what the word "football" means usually depends on where one says it.


title: Football

text: In each of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, one football code is known solely as "football", while the others generally require a qualifier. In New Zealand, "football" historically referred to rugby union, but more recently may be used unqualified to refer to association football. The sport meant by the word "football" in Australia is either Australian rules football or rugby league, depending on local popularity (which largely conforms to the Barassi Line). In francophone Quebec, where Canadian football is more popular, the Canadian code is known as while American football is known as and association football is known as .


title: Football

text: Of the 45 national FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) affiliates in which English is an official or primary language, most currently use "Football" in their organisations' official names; the FIFA affiliates in Canada and the United States use "Soccer" in their names. A few FIFA affiliates have recently "normalised" to using "Football", including:


title: Football

text: Several of the football codes are the most popular team sports in the world. Globally, association football is played by over 250 million players in over 200 nations, and has the highest television audience in sport, making it the most popular in the world. American football, with 1.1 million high school football players and nearly 70,000 college football players, is the most popular sport in the United States, with the annual Super Bowl game accounting for nine of the top ten of the most watched broadcasts in U.S. television history. The NFL has the highest average attendance (67,591) of any professional sports league in the world and has the highest revenue out of any single professional sports league. Thus, the best association football and American football players are among the highest paid athletes in the world.


title: Football

text: Australian rules football has the highest spectator attendance of all sports in Australia. Similarly, Gaelic football is the most popular sport in Ireland in terms of match attendance, and the All-Ireland Football Final is the most watched event of that nation's sporting year.


title: Football

text: Rugby union is the most popular sport in New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji. It is also the fastest growing sport in the U.S. with college rugby being the fastest growing college sport in that country.


title: Football

text: "These codes have in common the prohibition of the use of hands (by all players except the goalkeeper, though outfield players can "throw-in" the ball when it goes out of play), unlike other codes where carrying or handling the ball by all players is allowed"


title: Football

text: The hockey game bandy has rules partly based on the association football rules and is sometimes nicknamed as 'winter football'.


title: Football

text: "These codes have in common the ability of players to carry the ball with their hands, and to throw it to teammates, unlike association football where the use of hands during play is prohibited by anyone except the goalkeeper. They also feature various methods of scoring based upon whether the ball is carried into the goal area, or kicked above the goalposts."


title: Football

text: "These codes have in common the absence of an offside rule, the prohibition of continuous carrying of the ball (requiring a periodic bounce or solo (toe-kick), depending on the code) while running, handpassing by punching or tapping the ball rather than throwing it, and other traditions."


title: Football

text: Note: although similar to football and volleyball in some aspects, Sepak takraw has ancient origins and cannot be considered a hybrid game.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Idina Kim Menzel ( ; ; born May 30, 1971) is an American actress and singer. Particularly known for her work in musicals on the Broadway stage and having achieved mainstream success across stage, film and music, Menzel has garnered the honorific title "Queen of Broadway" for her achievements. Her accolades include an American Music Award, a Billboard Music Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for three Drama League Awards and four Drama Desk Awards. In 2019, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to live theatre.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel rose to prominence as a stage actress in 1996, making her Broadway debut playing Maureen Johnson in the rock musical "Rent," which earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. After appearing in several smaller-scale stage and Off-Broadway productions, in 2003 Menzel originated the role of Elphaba in the Broadway musical "Wicked", for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The popularity of the musical, Menzel's character and song "Defying Gravity" earned her a devoted following among theater fans. After leaving the show in 2005, she reprised the role in the musical's original West End production until the end of 2006, becoming the highest-paid actress in West End theatre history. In 2014, Menzel returned to Broadway as Elizabeth Vaughan in the musical "If/Then", for which she received a third Tony Award nomination.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel began transitioning to film and television roles in the early 2000s. After reprising her role as Maureen in "Rent's" 2005 film adaptation, she was cast as Nancy Tremaine in Disney's musical fantasy film "Enchanted" (2007) and reprised her role in its sequel "Disenchanted" (2022). She had a recurring role as Shelby Corcoran on the musical television series "Glee" (2010–2013)"." Since 2013, Menzel has voiced Elsa in Disney's animated "Frozen" franchise. "Let It Go", a song she recorded for the first film, became widely popular upon release, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song and reaching number five on the "Billboard" Hot 100, making her the first Tony Award-winning actor to have a top-10 song on the chart. Menzel also starred in the crime drama film "Uncut Gems" (2019) and in the jukebox musical film "Cinderella" (2021).


title: Idina Menzel

text: As a recording artist, Menzel has released six studio albums: "Still I Can't Be Still" (1998), "Here" (2004), "I Stand" (2008), "Holiday Wishes" (2014)"," "idina." (2016), and "" (2019).


title: Idina Menzel

text: Idina Kim Mentzel was born on May 30, 1971, in Manhattan, New York City. She grew up in New Jersey until about age three, when her family moved to Syosset, New York, on Long Island. Her parents are Stuart Mentzel, a pajama salesman, and Helene Goldberg, a therapist. She has a younger sister named Cara. Menzel is Jewish, and her grandparents emigrated from Ukrainian Haisyn. Menzel attended J. Irving Baylis Elementary School in Plainview, New York, and then Syosset's H. B. Thompson Middle School and Syosset High School.


title: Idina Menzel

text: When Menzel was 15 years old, her parents divorced and she began working as a wedding and bar/bat mitzvah singer, a job that she continued throughout her time at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama in 1992.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Idina changed the spelling of her surname to "Menzel" to better reflect the pronunciation that the Mentzel family had adopted in the United States. She was friends with actor Adam Pascal before they worked together in "Rent".


title: Idina Menzel

text: In 2017, during an interview with Irish New York–based songwriter Jimmy Walsh, he revealed that, in 1992, Menzel recorded a demo for him of the song "In Your Eyes", which went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest 1993 for Irish singer Niamh Kavanagh. Menzel was paid for the recording.


title: Idina Menzel

text: In 1995, Menzel auditioned for "Rent", which became her first professional theatre job and her Broadway debut. "Rent" opened Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on January 26, 1996, but it moved to Broadway's Nederlander Theatre due to its popularity. For her performance as Maureen Johnson in the original cast of the musical, Menzel received a Tony nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Musical losing to Ann Duquesnay for "Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk". Her final performance in the musical was on July 1, 1997. Despite her breakout performance in "Rent", Menzel did not experience the immediate success she was expecting, claiming she subsequently faded into "obscurity" for the following eight years.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Following the success of "Rent", Menzel released her first solo album entitled "Still I Can't Be Still" on Hollywood Records. Menzel also originated the role of Dorothy in "Summer of '42" at Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, starred as Sheila in the New York City Center Encores! production of "Hair" and appeared on Broadway as Amneris in "Aida". Menzel earned a Drama Desk Award nomination for her performance as Kate in the Manhattan Theatre Club's 2000 Off-Broadway production of Andrew Lippa's "The Wild Party". Her other Off-Broadway credits include the pre-Broadway run of "Rent" and "The Vagina Monologues".


title: Idina Menzel

text: In 2003, Menzel starred alongside Kristin Chenoweth on Broadway in "Wicked", a musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman based upon Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel "". Shortly after a San Francisco try-out, "Wicked" began previews on October 8, 2003, with an official opening night on October 30. Menzel's performance as Elphaba, the misunderstood Wicked Witch of the West, garnered critical acclaim, for which she won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Menzel's character also earned her a devoted fanbase, particularly among young girls who empathized with her misunderstood character, as well as a gay following. She can be heard on the show's Original Broadway Cast (OBC) recording. During her penultimate performance on January 8, 2005, she fell through a trap door during the melting scene and cracked a lower rib. This injury prevented her from performing in her final show on January 9. Menzel did, however, make a special appearance, in a red tracksuit, at that performance, performed her last song, and received a five-minute standing ovation. Menzel was replaced by Elphaba standby Shoshana Bean. In 2010, Broadway.com readers voted Menzel their favourite Elphaba performer out of the then-eleven actresses who had played the character on Broadway.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Following "Wicked", Menzel appeared Off-Broadway in the Public Theater's production of "See What I Wanna See", a Michael John LaChiusa-penned musical whose run ended in December 2005, for which she received Drama Desk Award and Drama League Award nominations. She reprised her Tony Award-winning role as Elphaba in the West End production of "Wicked" when it opened at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre on September 27, 2006. She starred alongside Helen Dallimore as Glinda and Adam Garcia as Fiyero. During her run, she was the highest-paid female performer in the West End at $30,000 per week. Menzel finished her West End run on December 30, 2006. She was succeeded by Elphaba standby Kerry Ellis.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel played the role of Florence in the 21st-anniversary concert of the musical "Chess" at London's Royal Albert Hall, from May 12 to 13, 2008, alongside Kerry Ellis, Adam Pascal, and Josh Groban. In 2008, she headlined the Powerhouse Theatre's reading of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's musical "Nero" from July 11 to 13, performing the role of Nero's mistress, Poppea. She was joined by "Glee" costar Lea Michele as Claudia Octavia, Jeffrey Carleson as Nero, and Michael Arden as Octavia's brother, Brittanicus.


title: Idina Menzel

text: By February 28, 2013, Menzel was cast to star as Elizabeth in the new Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey Broadway musical "If/Then". Directed by Michael Greif (whom Menzel previously worked within the original production of "Rent"), it had its world premiere at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., starting with previews on November 5, 2013, until November 24, 2013. Following the out-of-town tryout, the show moved to the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway and began previews on March 4, 2014. It officially opened on March 30, 2014. For her performance, Menzel received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Musical and performed Always Starting Over, but lost to Jessie Mueller for "". "If/Then" closed on Broadway on March 22, 2015, after 29 previews and 401 regular performances.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel reprised the role of Elizabeth (along with original Broadway cast members Lachanze, James Snyder, and Anthony Rapp) on the first seven stops of the show's national tour from October 2015 to January 2016. She departed the show (along with LaChanze and Snyder) on the last day of the Costa Mesa, California engagement, on January 24, 2016. Her replacement was Jackie Burns (who previously served as Menzel's standby in the Broadway production) starting January 27, 2016, in Dallas, Texas.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Later, in 2018, Menzel was cast as Jodi in Roundabout Theatre Company's World Premiere production of Joshua Harmon's new play "Skintight". The show premiered Off Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre. It began previews on May 31, 2018, opened on June 21, 2018, and ran for strictly limited engagement till August 26, 2018. The play earned Menzel rave reviews and marking it her first major New York Theater non-musical role. A year later, she reprised her performance in "Skintight" marking its debut on the West Coast. The production played the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, California running from September 3 – October 6, 2019.


title: Idina Menzel

text: While appearing in "Skintight", Menzel read for the role of Mary Jane in a workshop for the Broadway rock musical "Jagged Little Pill".


title: Idina Menzel

text: In late 2019, Menzel revealed on Twitter that she was working on "a mystery project" with Justin Tranter, Caroline Pennell and Eve Ensler (later known as V). In mid-2021, it was announced that this project is "Wild: A Musical Becoming", set to perform at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA from December 3, 2021, to January 21, 2022 (she was only scheduled to perform through December 23). It was later announced that she would star as Bea, with contributions to the lyrics. On December 17, due to COVID, it was announced that the show on that day was cancelled;


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel initially struggled to crossover into a solo music career beyond stage musicals, claiming the industry did not take her seriously as a pop or rock singer due to her Broadway origins. Menzel performed at the 1998 Lilith Fair summer concert festival and continues to write and perform original music. She has toured extensively and frequently performs in various venues throughout New York City. She produced and released her debut album, "Still I Can't Be Still", for Hollywood Records in 1998. One single from the album, "Minuet," made the Radio & Records CHR/Pop Tracks chart at number 48 in October 1998. Following the album release, she embarked on a promotional tour, but after selling fewer than 10,000 copies in the US and missing the Billboard 200, Menzel's label put the album out of print, and she was dropped from the label. However, the album was re-released once she began to rise to greater fame with her Tony-winning performance in "Wicked".


title: Idina Menzel

text: Her second album, "Here", was released independently by Zel Records in 2004. Menzel contributed to the soundtrack of "Desperate Housewives" in 2005. She also appears on Ray Charles's album "Genius and Friends," which was also released in 2005, on the track "I Will Be There." In 2007, she appeared on the "Beowulf" soundtrack singing the end credits song, "A Hero Comes Home." Also, in 2007, Menzel's powerful singing voice led her to be asked to accompany the baritone British "X Factor" runner-up, Rhydian Roberts, on his debut album, duetting on the song "What If".


title: Idina Menzel

text: Her third solo album, "I Stand", was released on January 29, 2008. It includes many new songs, including the lead single, "Brave", the title track "I Stand," and a song released on EP, "Gorgeous." The album debuted at number 58 on the "Billboard" 200, making it the first solo album by Menzel to make the charts. There are five versions of this album: the original version, the special limited edition, the iTunes version, the Barnes & Noble edition, and the Borders edition. Menzel wrote 9 of the 10 songs on her album, with the song "Forever" writing only by herself.


title: Idina Menzel

text: On April 1, 2008, Menzel kicked off her 2008–2009 "I Stand" tour in support of her new album performing four sold-out legs. The concert at Rose Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City was filmed for the PBS television series "Soundstage". Menzel was joined by special guests, superstar Josh Groban and saxophonist Ravi Coltrane.


title: Idina Menzel

text: On November 11, 2008, Menzel released "Hope," written by Paul Hampton, benefiting Stand Up to Cancer. On November 27, 2008, she performed "I Stand" on the M&M's Chocolate float as part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.


title: Idina Menzel

text: On July 19, 2010, Menzel performed "Defying Gravity" and "What I Did For Love" in front of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at "A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House." The concert aired on PBS on October 20, 2010.


title: Idina Menzel

text: In April 2010, Menzel returned to the concert stage embarking on her "Barefoot at the Symphony Tour" in which she was accompanied by major symphony orchestras. Her performances included collaborations with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and the North Carolina Symphony, and featured symphonic arrangements by New York composer and producer Rob Mounsey. In October 2011, Menzel returned to London to perform a one-night-only concert in the United Kingdom at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Marvin Hamlisch conducting. Menzel's concert stop in Toronto was filmed at The Royal Conservatory of Music on November 17 and 18, 2011, for her second PBS special. She was accompanied by the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony with Marvin Hamlisch conducting and special guest Taye Diggs, Menzel's then-husband. "Idina Menzel Live: Barefoot at the Symphony" was released as a live CD and DVD and aired on PBS in March 2012, with Musical Director Rob Mounsey producing.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel announced she would continue live performances in 2012. The first date she announced was July 8, 2012, at Ravinia Festival near Chicago, Illinois. She made her Carnegie Hall solo debut (originally on October 29, 2012). However, due to Hurricane Sandy's impact on New York City, it was postponed until January 13, 2013.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel toured Australia in June 2013 with shows in South Australia, Melbourne, Brisbane, and two at the Sydney Opera House.


title: Idina Menzel

text: On June 17, 2014, during a at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, Menzel confirmed that she was working on a Christmas album that would contain original material to be released later that same year. In that concert, she performed one of the original tunes from the album, "December Prayer". The album, "Holiday Wishes", was released on October 14, 2014. The album has so far peaked at number 10 on the "Billboard" 200, becoming her highest-charting album as a solo lead artist. "Holiday Wishes" also marked the first that a woman had three different albums (along with the cast recording to "Frozen" and "If/Then") peak within the top 20 within ten months of the release date. "Holiday Wishes" also become the second-ever Christmas album to chart before Halloween during the SoundScan Era after Garth Brooks's 1992 album "Beyond the Season". On November 26, 2014, Menzel announced through her Facebook page that she would be touring during the summer of 2015, making it her first and first time playing shows in Europe and Asia.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel was honored with the Breakthrough Artist award at the 2014 "Billboard" Women in Music awards ceremony.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" a cappella at Super Bowl XLIX on February 1, 2015. Menzel's rendition earned mixed reviews from critics, who praised the quality of her voice but questioned some of her stylistic choices, namely tempo and volume. In a complementary review, Markos Papadatos of "The Digital Journal" felt Menzel redeemed her reputation as a strong vocalist after pundits had criticized her live performance of "Let it Go" at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve the previous year.


title: Idina Menzel

text: On August 5, 2016, Menzel announced she would release her eponymous fifth album, on September 23. Of the release, Menzel stated: "I poured my heart out and used my music as a place to kind of figure some things out. It's a really personal album." Marking it as her first original Pop studio album in 8 years since "I Stand", the album debuted at # 29 on the US Billboard 200. With the success of the album, Menzel embarked on a World Tour in 2017 that traveled to Asia, Europe, and North America. Menzel's concert stop in Las Vegas was recorded for her second live album entitled "idina Live" and released on October 12, 2018.


title: Idina Menzel

text: On March 12, 2018, it was announced that Menzel would join Josh Groban for his Bridges Tour. For this tour, she served as Groban's Opening act before joining him later during his set for 2 duets of "Lullaby" and "Falling Slowly". Menzel only performed with Groban on the first leg of North America in various cities, including Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and a sold-out performance at New York's famed Madison Square Garden. The New York City show (entitled "Bridges Live From Madison Square Garden") was also filmed and released in Movie Theaters & later a Live CD & DVD release with an airing on PBS.


title: Idina Menzel

text: On May 11, 2019, it was revealed that she had signed to Scooter Braun and SB Projects for music management. On October 18, 2019, Menzel released her second holiday album entitled "" from School Boy and Decca Records on October 18, 2019. It debut at # 2 on Billboard's US Top Holiday Albums. In support of it, Menzel embarked on a three-city concert tour in the east coast including a sold-out return to New York's Carnegie Hall.


title: Idina Menzel

text: On October 11, 2022, Menzel announced on her Instagram page that she would be releasing a concert special on Disney+ on December 9 titled "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?". The special will consist of concert footage from Madison Square Garden in New York. The title is a nod to Menzel's first line as Maureen in "Rent".


title: Idina Menzel

text: After minor roles in "Kissing Jessica Stein" and "Just a Kiss", Menzel had supporting roles in "The Tollbooth" and "Water" in 2004. Her first major role in a major film was in 2005 when she reprised her role as Maureen Johnson in the film adaptation of "Rent". She was nominated for several critics circle awards for the part.


title: Idina Menzel

text: In 2007, Menzel appeared in the musical romantic comedy film "Enchanted" as Nancy Tremaine, the fiancée of Patrick Dempsey's character Robert and Giselle's (Amy Adams) romantic rival. Despite being a musical, Menzel famously does not sing in the film; a duet songwriters Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz had written for her character was ultimately not used. Menzel was offered the role without auditioning and was flattered that Disney cast her based solely on her acting abilities. Menzel explained that having her character sing would have made little sense narrative-wise, due to Nancy belonging to the reality-based New York world as opposed to the film's more fantastical characters. She opted to portray Nancy with vulnerability as opposed to "a typical mean girlfriend that everyone's going to hate." "Enchanted" was a critical and commercial success, but "The Hollywood Reporter"'s Kirk Honeycutt accused the film of wasting Menzel's talent, while Jim Lane of the "Sacramento News & Review" felt the actress was underused. However, "Screen Rant"'s Mel Hall found Menzel's performance compelling. Menzel reprised her role in the sequel "Disenchanted" released in 2022, in which her character sang for the first time.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel had a recurring guest star role in the television series "Glee" playing Shelby Corcoran, the coach of the rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline. When the series first premiered, "Glee" fans (known collectively as 'Gleeks') had noted a strong physical resemblance between Menzel and Lea Michele, who portrays the character of Rachel Berry. According to her then-husband, actor Taye Diggs, Menzel had expressed interest in possibly guest-starring as the biological mother of Rachel. The character was introduced in the episode "Hell-O". Lea Michele and Idina Menzel sing together "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Misérables" and "Poker Face" originally by Lady Gaga. Menzel returned to "Glee" in season 3 episode "I Am Unicorn", her role this time as a teacher causing trouble for Rachel, Quinn, Puck, and former flame Will Schuster.


title: Idina Menzel

text: In 2013, Menzel voiced Elsa, a young queen struggling with her magical ability to control ice and snow, in Disney's animated film "Frozen". After she failed to secure the lead role in Disney's "Tangled" (2010), the studio rediscovered Menzel's "Tangled" audition while casting "Frozen", which "Tangled"'s casting director had secretly recorded on her phone. Loosely based on the titular villain in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Snow Queen", Menzel's character was re-written into a misunderstood heroine for Disney's adaptation, prompted by songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez's creation of her anthem "Let It Go". They wrote "Let it Go" with Menzel in mind due to its demanding vocal range. Released to critical acclaim, "Frozen" became the highest-grossing animated film at the time of its release, earning $1.27 billion worldwide. Film critics praised Menzel's performance, particularly her rendition of "Let It Go", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song became a global pop culture phenomenon, with several fans uploading covers and parodies to the internet. "Let It Go" was also a successful radio single; peaking at number five on the "Billboard" Hot 100, the song's placement made Menzel the first Tony Award-winning actor to earn a top-10 song on the chart. "Let it Go" ultimately became one of the best-selling songs of 2014, selling 10.9 million copies and out-performing Demi Lovato's pop version. Although Disney Music Group president Ken Bunt claims they had always intended to release Menzel's rendition as a single after Lovato's, the success of Menzel's version on pop radio was considered surprising due to its non-commercial sound. Menzel has since reprised her role of Elsa in most of her appearances including video games such as the "Disney Infinity" series and "Kingdom Hearts III", the 2015 short film "Frozen Fever", the 2017 featurette short film "Olaf's Frozen Adventure", the 2018 film "Ralph Breaks the Internet", and for the 2019 sequel "Frozen II".


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel sang "Let it Go" live at the 86th Academy Awards in March 2014, where the song had been nominated for (and eventually won) the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Before her performance, actor John Travolta mispronounced her name as "Adele Dazeem" while introducing her to the stage, and the mispronunciation subsequently became a viral Internet meme. Menzel was not upset about the mispronunciation. In response to the misnaming, she reportedly printed up satirical playbills that promoted her name as Adele Dazeem, noting her past work in "Nert" ("Rent"), "Wicked-ly" ("Wicked") and "Farfignugen" (a play on the word "Fahrvergnügen", referring to "Frozen"). Three days after the ceremony, Travolta publicly apologized to Menzel for mispronouncing her name. At the 87th Academy Awards, Menzel presented the award for Best Original Song alongside Travolta where she jokingly introduced him as "Glom Gazingo". Travolta then finally pronounced her name correctly when he appeared on stage.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel starred as C.C. Bloom in the Lifetime TV movie remake of the film "Beaches", which aired on January 21, 2017.


title: Idina Menzel

text: She was announced to star on the Ellen DeGeneres-produced sitcom "Happy Time", but, as of October 15, 2019, this project appears to have been shelved.


title: Idina Menzel

text: She starred alongside Adam Sandler playing his wife Dinah Ratner in the 2019 crime film "Uncut Gems".


title: Idina Menzel

text: In 2021, Menzel co-starred alongside Camila Cabello, Billy Porter and James Corden in Kay Cannon's jukebox musical adaptation of the Cinderella fairy tale, playing Cinderella's stepmother Vivian. Despite admiring actresses who played the role prior, Menzel strove to eschew "the archetypal kind of idea of the straight-ahead evil nemesis" in favor of exploring the trauma behind the character's cruel nature. Menzel also wrote and recorded an original song for her character entitled "Dream Girl". "Cinderella" received mixed reviews upon release, but Menzel's performance was praised. Commending her chemistry with Cabello, "IndieWire"'s Kristen Lopez said she plays the character "deliciously", while Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" described Menzel as "her usual spectacular self" and "arguably the most nuanced and empathetic 'evil' stepmother in 'Cinderella' history". Michael Calleri of the "Niagara Gazette" said Menzel delivers the film's best performance, writing she has enough talent "to give [her character's] banality a boost." She will also star in "American Murderer" directed by Matthew Gentile and "You Are So Not Invited to my Bat Mitzvah" directed by Sammi Cohen, with co-stars Adam Sandler and Sarah Sherman.


title: Idina Menzel

text: During the ongoing time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Menzel created and launched a brand new YouTube web series for children entitled "Idina's Treehouse". The series featured Menzel from her treehouse out in her Los Angeles home that originally was built for her son Walker Nathaniel Diggs. It features a full set of songs, stories, and appearances from Menzel's family and friends.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range that spans approximately three octaves. For the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette", Sharon Eberson wrote that Menzel's voice "could be categorized as coquettish to flat-out belter and everything in between—and with a stage presence to match—she usually is labeled a mezzo-soprano. But why pigeonhole someone so intriguingly offbeat?" Eberson observed that she "interprets songs as much as an actress as a singer," believing, "therein lies her connection to the music and her fans." Describing Menzel as a loud soprano similar to Broadway actress Ethel Merman, Stephen Holden of "The New York Times "wrote "The sound she creates when she belts ... is a primal cry embedded in her being that insists that we listen and pay attention." Holden observed that her voice can alternate between "babyish and demanding, or it can sound grand and imperial" depending on the song choice. According to Andrew Gans of "Playbill", Menzel has "one of the most unique voices of her generation, a pliable alto that can be sweet and girlish in its middle register and then easily soar to pop-influenced top notes way above high C." "Frozen" songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez described Menzel's voice as "a warm hug" with "this warmth and this vulnerability down low. And then, as you bring her higher and higher, she gets stronger and stronger, and more powerful. She just reaches into your soul when she’s singing these big, giant songs."


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel is known for her signature high belting style; The Kennedy Center website cites Menzel as a prime example of a "Broadway Belter" who uses the technique to her advantage. Theater critic Charles Isherwood said the singer "has a voice that is very much her own," describing it as "totally distinctive" with "a great belt and a great range." Describing Menzel's voice as "husky ... which sometimes veers toward shrieking until she effortlessly reins herself in or, amazingly, kicks it up another notch," Melissa Ruggieri of "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" believes she possesses "a superior instrument" both live and in-studio. Explaining her own technique, Menzel said she avoids moving her shoulders while singing and prefers "to take a smaller breath for a bigger, longer note because there's less air that will come pummeling out." She also maintains her voice by constantly steaming and practicing vocal warm ups, describing her routine as "very ritualistic" and "disciplined". Despite her live vocals earning consistent acclaim, some critics have criticized Menzel's belting for sounding "screechy". Schuyler Velasco of "The Christian Science Monitor" observed that the singer "made a career out of belting notes that would fry the vocal chords of mere mortals", but felt the emotion of her performances sometimes suffers at the hands of her vocal proficiency. Velasco cited her rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XLIX as an example of Menzel sacrificing excitement and inspiration for technique, yet delivering an adequate performance nonetheless. Menzel addressed such criticisms during a 2014 concert, explaining that she wishes to sing loud, proud and "from the heart" like her idols Merman and Aretha Franklin. Tim Smith of "The Baltimore Sun" wrote that Menzel's "high-wattage vocal cords and intense phrasing ... [make] a mark whenever she sings." Menzel admits that she finds some of her most famous songs challenging, namely songs from the "Frozen" films, which "push her to vocal extremes" and require constant warming up and sometimes lowering the key for live performances. The term "powerhouse" has often been used in the media to describe Menzel's vocal ability.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel's vocal style has drawn comparisons to singer Barbra Streisand, whose song "Don't Rain on My Parade" she often covers, including in tribute to her at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors. Menzel said she had long aspired to have a career as successful as Streisand to whose Jewish upbringing Menzel has also been compared, with fans deeming her "the next big Jewish icon in music". Menzel was particularly inspired by Streisand's performance in the film "A Star is Born" (1976), and cites singers Franklin, Billie Holiday, Etta James, Chaka Khan and Sarah Vaughan among her vocal idols. Despite emulating her inspirations, Menzel claims she maintains the importance of "finding [her] own voice." Some critics have dubbed Menzel "the Streisand of her generation". Similar comparisons have been drawn between Menzel and singer Bette Midler.


title: Idina Menzel

text: Professionally trained as a classical singer from age eight, Menzel decided to pursue different genres such as R&B and jazz once she began high school. Upon becoming a wedding singer, Menzel was eventually exposed to a wide variety of musical genres, ranging from jazz to rock and Motown, and would often experiment with new arrangements of traditional songs. She credits her wedding singer background with training her to improvise new vocal arrangements, which in turn helps her ad-lib alternative versions of songs when she is feeling unwell or her voice is tired. Her set lists tend to incorporate an eclectic combination of original material and covers of popular pop, rock, musical theatre and film songs, selecting an assortment of songs she expects fans want to hear and feels inspired to attempt new interpretations of. Jay Handelman of the "Sarasota Herald-Tribune" opined that Menzel's song choices "reinforce her own offbeat personality." According to Menzel, her song selections usually indicate a milestone, choosing to convey a stories and memories about her life using music. Menzel often opts to perform barefoot in concert, which has become a trademark of her live performances. She also enjoys conversing with audience members in-between musical performances. In addition to her vocal prowess, Menzel has been noted for her charming and witty banter; Smith described her as "a pro at delivering stage banter and as quick on the draw with one-liners as seasoned stand-up comedians." On her stage presence, "The Denver Post" critic Ray Mark Rinaldi wrote that Menzel delivers "the kind of self-assurance that can only come from beating out Kristin Chenoweth for a Tony. She comes out on stage, dressed like she doesn’t care, acting a little dizzy, but knowing all along she’s gonna hit the right notes."


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel has become closely associated with songs about self-empowerment, specifically her Signature Songs "Defying Gravity" and "Let it Go". "Discussing Disney" author Amy M. Davis believes Menzel's voice "has become associated with rebellion for Broadway fans." However, the artist claims such themes have made her feel fraudulent at times because she herself does not always feel empowered. Subsequently, she began incorporating more emotional material into her sets, such as Radiohead's "Creep". Although Menzel co-writes most of her own material as a singer-songwriter, she considers herself a collaborator rather than a songwriter, explaining that she prefers working with professional songwriters or producers: "They start playing some music, and I like to sing… I can sing melodies, I come up with titles and lyrical ideas, but I’m really not good at making decisions." She has frequently collaborated with songwriter and producer Glen Ballard, and tends to draw upon lyrics from her personal diary and melodies from a tape recorder. Menzel claims she has never completed writing a song entirely on her own, finding the process to be too stressful: "I never had a good song that I wrote, so to ... act like I’m this great songwriter, I would be just a fraud. But, I’m good at bringing myself to it—being a good collaborator in the room.” She cites Joni Mitchell and Annie Lennox among her musical influences, describing them as "singer-songwriters who had these amazing voices but also were incredible storytellers and lyricists", while expressing admiration for musicians Bono, Sting and Seal. "The Ithacan"'s Preston Arment observed that "what Menzel may lack in songwriting ability, she makes up for with stunning vocals that remind us why listeners will never stop loving her." AllMusic biographer Marcy Donelson described Menzel's studio albums as a combination of Adult Alternative, vocal, and contemporary pop music. Menzel's fifth studio album, which she considers to be her most personal to-date, contains a combination of ballads and upbeat tracks that explore themes about home, personal loss, empowerment, relationships and starting over, much of which was inspired by her divorce from Taye Diggs. Bailey Flynn of "The Heights" believes the album demonstrates several trademarks for which Menzel has become known: "power ballads that give her huge vocal range and mind-blowing control all the chance they need to show off."


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel described performing her own songs live as "scarier" than singing covers or songs from established shows because "You're a little bit more transparent. There's no costume or character I'm hiding behind ... yet sometimes it's more rewarding because of that", describing the feeling of hearing fans sing songs she has written herself as "incredible".


title: Idina Menzel

text: Menzel is considered to be among the greatest Broadway performers of her generation, possessing one of the most recognized and sought-after singing voices in the industry. Her success on Broadway has earned her the honorific nickname "Queen of Broadway" from several media publications. In 2019, Oliver Jones of "The New York Observer" called her "one of the defining Broadway voices of our time". Jenny Singer of "Glamour" declared Menzel one of history's greatest musical theater vocalists, while Melina Gills of Tribeca Film described her as "an icon and one of the most celebrated presences on the singing stage". The "Toronto Sun"'s Jim Slotek dubbed her "this generation's Broadway icon". In a 2020 retrospective, Cleveland.com's Troy L. Smith crowned Menzel the best vocalist of 2013, writing that "Let it Go" only cemented her legacy as "one of Broadway’s greatest stars of all time". The previous year, BroadwayWorld recognized Menzel as one of the decade's 10 most defining Broadway stars. "Time Out" ranked Menzel Broadway's 19th greatest female performer of all-time, recognizing that she established a "stratospheric reputation" based almost entirely on the popularity of only two roles: "Rent" and "Wicked". Examining the endurance of "Defying Gravity" from "Wicked", Vulture.com's Jackson McHenry attributes the song's popularity to Menzel's powerhouse vocals, believing few singers can service the ballad as successfully as Menzel.