Actress, Singer
Commencement speech at University of Pennsylvania, 2023
Idina Menzel,an actress and singer speaking at the University of Pennsylvania's 267th Commencement, encourages the Class of 2023 to embrace the power of their voices. Reflecting on her experiences, she highlights the inevitability of imperfection and the importance of repetition in personal growth. she leaves them with the empowering message to let their voices be heard.10 top life lessons by Idina Menzel
- Embrace Imperfection: Menzel highlights that even in the face of setbacks, like her cracked voice during an audition, embracing imperfections and persisting can lead to success.
- Navigate Change: Graduates are encouraged to navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing world, having experienced recession, pandemic, and societal shifts during their short lives.
- Express Authentic Emotion: Menzel urges graduates to feel their emotions fully, whether it’s anger, sadness, or determination, and to let these emotions drive them forward.
- Cultivate Grit: The director of Wicked valued Menzel’s determination and grit even more than her initial mistake, emphasizing the importance of resilience in the face of challenges.
- Value Humanity over Perfection: While perfection may be elusive, Menzel emphasizes the certainty of humanity and the genuine connections it can foster.
- Appreciate Repetition: Drawing parallels between performing on stage and life, Menzel suggests finding meaning in repetition, acknowledging that it allows for new perspectives and connections.
- Live Authentically: Graduates are encouraged to resist societal labels and embrace their multifaceted identities, recognizing that they are more than one thing.
- Overcome Stage Fright: Menzel likens entering the world stage to a performance, urging graduates not to let stage fright hinder them from fully engaging in their roles.
- Channel Emotion into Determination: In challenging moments, graduates are advised to channel their emotions into determination, using the tension to propel themselves forward.
- Let Your Voice Be Heard: The overarching lesson is to recognize the power of one’s voice and the importance of expressing oneself authentically in a world that may be both dissonant and experimental.
Best quotes of Idina Menzel‘s speech
"Feel whatever you feel, all that you feel, and then keep going.""While perfection is elusive, humanity is certain. It will get you where you want to go."
Commencement speech transcript
Now, graduates, before I speak to you,
I want to hear from you. You can shout. You can sing.
You can sign.
Just don’t hold back.
Pretend you’re at the Annenberg Center
and the curtain just fell.
Pretend you’re at the Palestra and Kayla Padilla just sank a three-
pointer.
C’mon, let’s hear it. (Pause)
Okay.
Since I was a small child, people have told me that
my power is my voice.
And now I know, Class of 2023
we definitely have that in common.
(Pause)
Thank you, President Magill,
Interim Provost Winkel-stine, board
members, faculty members, staff members,
family members, fellow honorees.
Thank you, Class of 2023!
Graduates,
in your short lives,
you have experienced recession and inflation, pandemic and
insurrection,
the rollback of Roe and the rise of #MeToo,
a racial reckoning, a climate crisis.
Not to mention
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smartphones and streaming and social media,
the mapping of the human genome,
the miracles of modern medicine.
And that’s to say nothing of what I’m sure has been going on in
here [point to head]
and in here [point to heart].
(Pause)
In times like this,
it can be really hard to know when to use your voice— and
how.
Whether
to yell or to whisper,
to declare or to question, to speak or to listen.
Whether
your words will be amplified,
or attacked,
or ignored altogether.
And whether that even matters. Whether your anger is allowed,
whether your sadness is sensible,
whether your ideas are any good.
Even sitting here,
you might feel that tension…
As you end something incredible and start something unimaginable…
Your heart, both aching and full. (Pause)
Graduates,
I am here today
with a single message: Don’t hold back.
Harness any tension you feel. And let your voice be heard.
(Pause)
Today is May 15, 2023.
Exactly 20 years ago, on May 15, 2003,
I was actually in rehearsals, preparing to take the stage in San
Francisco
for the world premiere of Wicked.
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And let me tell you,
getting the role of Elphaba,
Was not a given.
At one audition early on, the creative team asked me to
sing the song “Defying Gravity.”
Ask any Penn Player here today, and they’ll tell you:
It is an incredible song with
an incredibly high note at the end.
So I practiced and I practiced,
And when I stood in front of the director and producers, I
really thought I was ready.
But just as I went to hit that note…
(Sing)
My voice cracked. (Pause)
I was so mad at myself. I shouted.
Loudly.
Profanely and loudly.
And I fought the instinct to run.
And then I took a deep breath and I looked at the accompanist, and I
said, we’re gonna do that again.
And I then hit that note. I nailed it !
(Pause)
Look, we are all human.
Even you, Class of 2023,
with your world-class education and your relentless determination.
Your business might struggle. Your experiment might falter.
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Your voice might crack.
Some of you, like me, might express your anger.
Some of you might shut down.
Feel whatever you feel, all that you feel,
and then keep going.
(Pause)
A few years after that audition, the director of Wicked, Joe
Mantello,
told me that he knew I was right for the part
in the moments after I missed the note.
Because Grit won him over… and that other four-letter word
sealed the deal.
While perfection is elusive, humanity is certain.
And it will get you where you want to go,
where you need to be.
(Pause)
I performed Wicked eight shows a week, for
years.
I hit that high note in “Defying Gravity”
more times than I can count, and my voice cracked a few times,
too.
A performer’s life is, in some ways,
a life of repetition.
Of saying the same words again and again.
Of singing the same tune again and again.
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How many of you have sung…
or heard your siblings sing… a certain Disney song
again and again?
I apologize for that.
(Pause)
I’m going to let you in on a secret:
I really don’t mind repeating myself.
In fact,
I love repeating myself.
Afterall, I’m an actor,
I like hearing myself talk. I like the attention.
No really,
I love repeating myself because I am grateful for
the opportunity
to use my voice.
But also because when I repeat myself…
I open myself up to trying new riffs on
the melody…
And finding new meaning in the lyrics…
And finding new ways
to connect with the material and the audience.
(Pause)
A few years ago,
I was in Pittsburgh.
It was just a couple of weeks after the Tree of Life shooting.
I was doing a concert
and I was conflicted because
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I knew members of the audience would be mourning…
Just as I was,
and all Jewish people were, and all good people everywhere were.
And so, I lit a candle on stage and sang a song that I had sung
thousands of times before:
A song from Rent called “No Day But Today.”
(Sing)
“There’s only now, there’s only here,
Give into love or live in fear.”
Those words took on new meaning that day.
There are educators among you who will teach the same
history lessons year after year.
What new meaning might you find
in the present circumstance?
There are economists
who will look at the same market trends
over and over.
What vision for the future might challenge you?
I’m not worried about the jazz musicians;
you know how to improvise.
Or the marching band members; you know how to beat the drum.
But the rest of you, what will you do
when you have to repeat yourself?
What will you do when you have to persist?
(Pause)
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Which brings me to my final point.
You, graduates, contain multitudes.
As a group, yes.
But also as individuals. Don’t ever forget that.
Our world is obsessed with labels.
With binaries,
with fitting everyone and everything
into boxes.
The truth is,
you are more than one thing. You are more than many things. You
are everything.
(Pause)
Now, I want to be clear,
I’m not asking you to do it all, and I’m certainly not promising you
can have it all.
But I am asking you to live the fullness of who you are.
Play every role you were put on this earth to play.
(Pause)
Class of 2023,
if the bard is correct
and all the world’s a stage… Today, you step out onto it.
You have rehearsed for four long years— or
maybe five,
or maybe six,
or even longer for the graduate students!
(Between us? The production process
always takes longer than you think.)
But now, you’re here. You know all your lines.
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You are ready
to play your part.
And still nothing is ever perfectly scripted. You may have to ad
lib because it turns out that the world
is more experimental than traditional.
It’s more dissonant than harmonious.
It’s more off-off-Broadway, than Broadway,
if you get my drift.
So, as you step into the spotlight,
no one’s going to blame you for a bit of stage fright.
But I’d ask you,
from one performer to another, please don’t to let that stop you.
(Don’t let that hold you back.)
Channel your emotion into determination…
Find exhilaration in the repetition…
And put all of yourself into this role of a lifetime.
This role of your lifetime. (Pause)
Class of 2023,
as you proved at the very start, we all have a voice.
Inside each of us, there are lengths of
ligament and muscle and tissue.
And when those cords are brought together,
and air flows over them,
the tension creates vibration.
And when you harness that tension, you can sigh deeply,
or speak out loudly.
You can even sing. (Sing)
And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
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Shinin’ until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me Speaking
words of wisdom, let it be
And let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
(Pause)
Let your voice be heard
Congratulations, Class of 2023. Thank you