THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA Musical - News & Discussion Thread — Page 12

Saw the Wednesday evening preview with the Andy understudy. Let’s cut to the chase fellow posters. This show has big problems on multiple fronts — namely book, music, choreography and direction. Of those, the book and the music are the most pressing problems. Elton John simply hasn’t written a score for this show. There is no there there when it comes to the music. If this show has any chance of succeeding, Sir John is going to have to come up with some real showstopper music. There’s nothing that comes close to that in “Prada” as it now stands. The book lurches along with scene after scene that fizzles. The ending??? Could it be any more of a dead moment? Andy sitting at a desk. Not working. Director Anna Shapiro certainly knows her way around a straight play script. But she is floundering here. For me the show completely lost it when Andy’s friends come out and face the audience and sing a deadly dull song. They never move the whole time. You could feel the energy level in the house plummet as the song dragged on and on and on. The ending? Andy sitting at a desk. Not working. Producer Kevin McCollum has some tough decisions to make in the days and weeks to come about what needs to be done. It’s going to be very interesting to see how he navigates this. He really can’t afford to take another fiasco like Doubtfire into New York City.

Saw the show last week and agree with a lot of the sentiment about the music. Though I don't see much conversation around Andy's first Paris number (no song list in the playbill, but guessing it's "Who's She?". Aside with Nigel's second act number, I thought it was one of the highlights and Taylor Iman Jones really owned it.



Love reading about all these changes btw. keep em coming! Shame about the sign.

There’s a short parade of magazine staff in the Act One RUNWAY office number that has always been fascinating to watch. I’ve named it the Shoulder Parade. It lasts maybe only 14-16 seconds.

The audience sees an endless ensemble - strutting from right to left - with exaggerated shoulder movements. I have no idea what else is going on anywhere else on the stage. My eyes are always glued to the shoulder moves in the short parade.

Sharon (from HR) has always been the last person in the shoulder parade, a tag ending with an awkward shuffle of her heels, and a few beats behind.

On Thursday, she wasn’t shuffling but was as regal with her shoulder movements as the other ensemble shoulders ahead of her.

Tonight, she wasn’t in the Shoulder Parade at all.

But Sharon (from HR) was in other parts of the Friday, July 29 performance, which had two understudies and 3 swings.

The Christian Thompson character was played by Terrance Spencer. In his IN OUR TWENTIES number, a new neighborhood street projection has been added. An accordion has replaced the concertina.

Later, at the 4-table luncheon, red flowers have been added to the tabletops.

Merch is a different store every night. A new shipment of blue totes, white mugs, and white That’s All tee shirts arrived, yet black tees are temporarily out of stock.

Thursday’s unruly U was on good behavior tonight - the RUNWAY was fully lit.

Updated On: 7/30/22 at 12:17 AM

This show does…not sound good. So I’m really hoping I can make it out to Chicago in the next few weeks to witness this for myself.

JasonC3 said: "InTheKnowEvenIfYouDontBelieve said: "Everything is all IP now." I get your apparent frustration, but this is a sweeping generalization. And Broadway musicals have been adaptations or based on books, movies, and plays for decades, including Sondheim." Yes, but the pre-packaging of known quantities to squeeze more money out of back catalogue titles is new. This musical exists because 20th Century Fox made a deal with Kevin McCollum to develop musicals based on their popular properties. Nobody approached Sondheim about adapting an Ettore Scola film, and that property did not guarantee huge advance sales. In the golden age, musicals based on famous properties tried to actively distance themselves from their source materials, and so we have My Fair Lady and Hello, Dolly instead of Pygmalion, the Musical! and The Matchmaker, the Musical!



There is an old Theater Talk episode on Youtube that has the panel discussing how musicals were adapted from popular IPs, but yet still carried an identity of their own. Example: Pygmalion was called My Fair Lady--you found an identity for the source material besides calling it the actual source material. But today, everyone needs the "name" in order for it to sell.

Elton's husband has been spotted in Chicago.

Elton has a concert on Friday that the entire cast are attending.

Do we know if Elton has seen the show yet?

Saw the show twice in Chicago over the weekend. Once up in the front center loge, the second fourth row center orchestra. Noticed totally different things with each viewing - up in the loge allowed us to really take in the full set and choreography, while seeing it in the orchestra gave us the chance to admire the costumes more closely, along with some of the cast's more subtle acting choices.

Jessie Hooker Bailey was on for both shows I saw this weekend. Ironically, upon reading her bio, I realized I saw her as Savannah in the Freaky Friday tour a few years ago. She did a really fantastic job. Brava to her for stepping in so quickly earlier this week (it appears she's played all shows for the last week).

Generally, I enjoyed it. Huge Beth Leavel fan so getting the chance to see her live closer to "home" was a real treat. The show itself definitely needs some work - I agree with many of the things others have stated previously - but I am really excited to see what they change between this run and Broadway.

More in depth thoughts coming, so some relatively minor show spoilers ahead:

There's a part of Act 1 where Miranda essentially wears the same outfit across multiple "days", just in different colors. It's clear Beth has to change in and out of them fairly quickly, but my god, she seemed to be absolutely swimming in them. There was one point where I genuinely thought one of the suit jackets was going to slide off her shoulder, and she kept pulling it up as she was sitting at her desk during one part of the scene. This happened during both shows I saw, so it clearly wasn't just a quick change mishap of some kind for one particular show. Someone, please, for the love of god, find a way to allow her to do the quick changes and still have her costumes properly fit. Beth looks stunning in this show, truly, but Miranda Priestly would never, ever wear something ill-fitting.

From earlier reports, I expected to hate the choice to make Miranda's wig longer and red. Seeing it in person, I think it worked. Will be curious to see if they keep it when this transfers or if they decide to go for the more "iconic" silver look.

Beth gets some great biting lines, some of which were iconic lines from the movie, and some that are original to this production. In general, I want more of them. The "I will send you to Estee Lauder for testing" line between Miranda and Emily was particularly great.

The song between the boyfriend and Andy's two friends about whether they can still "love her if she's changed" needs cut. Period. We already sense there's tension from some previous book scenes, and there's no reason to stop the show with another song for three minor characters.

As someone mentioned previously, the title song at the Act 1 break was really difficult to understand from up in the loge. Was able to decipher it a bit more during the second show down in the orchestra, so unsure if it's just a sound mixing issue or what.

"Dress Your Way Up" in Act 1 and "Who's She?" in Act 2 gave me minor "Strongest Suit" vibes from Aida. I did think it was strange that all of the outfits during "Dress Your Way" are...white? I think they were attempting to use some lighting effects to "change" the colors, but that fell a bit flat for me. Show actual outfits in various colors, styles, etc. Big. Dramatic. Bold. Needs a Cher Show Bob Mackie type of vibe there.

Javier Muñoz was fantastic as Nigel. His Act 2 "backstory" song definitely made me a bit teary-eyed.

The "seduction" scene with Christian Thompson in Paris was....strange. I did see the Christian understudy twice this weekend, so perhaps it was more of a chemistry issue, but the song itself sounded much more New Orleans jazz than Parisian.

In my opinion, there needs to be more direct interaction between Andy & Miranda to allow us to get more into Miranda's head. We obviously see Miranda through the lens of Andy, so we need more opportunities to do so with more book scenes between them. A scene where Andy delivers something to Miranda's home could do wonders here - perhaps Miranda doesn't realize she's there, has the opportunity to sing more than just a patter about the struggles she's dealing with, and as the song begins to grow to the brink of a belt, it's cut short when she realizes Andy is there. This still allows the production to let it all explode during Beth's (admittedly FABULOUS) 11 o' clock number, but still gives the audience a glimpse at the anger and struggle that's brewing inside Miranda throughout the show. We don't really get to see much of that, save for a quick book scene when Miranda is on the phone with her daughter while in France.

I'll be very curious to see what changes are made between Chicago and New York. Would love to see it again before it closes in Chicago, but I don't think the timing will work out, so looking forward to reading others' accounts over the next few weeks.

Updated On: 8/1/22 at 10:27 AM

'At the luncheon, the four white tablecloths have been changed to a light olive green'

Wooh wooh, the show is saved.

#Justice4Mimes

I am hearing they are waiting for the reviews before making big changes.

It seems like they know something is off - but don't know how to fix it yet........

Do you think relying on critics to show authors the way, really helps?

When Elton John entered the house to take his main floor seat Wednesday night at 8:05 PM, the crowd stood and roared.

In other news, the sound of a car crash has been added to the top of Act 2.

Marlothom said: "... To your reference to the movie scene where she throws the phone into the fountain, at the first preview, when the phone rings at the end, Andy said "that's all!" and puts the phone in a jar filled with water. It got some applause. A week later they had removed that - but it might have been that the understudy flubbed the line. Does anyone know if that's back in the show? (Balcony Club?)

Dumping the phone into the water has been a difficult read from the balcony. It makes very little impression near the end of Act 2. If I recall correctly, Andy dumped the phone into a drinking glass of water in the first few performances, but now dumps the phone into a larger glass pitcher filled with water.

Andy has always wanted to be a writer, so more lines have been added in the Christian & Andy hotel scene, with Andy being grateful that Miranda asked her to write a speech for the luncheon.

shocktheatre said: "Oops. Is this gonna be another high-profile misfire from Miss Hissy Fit ("My score is perfect as is, work the **** arount it"?"

What's the story here? Something from Suffs? Shame this sounds like such a misfire.