THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA musical headed to the UK and West End in 2024 — Page 5

Vanessa Williams was on Alec Baldwin's podcast Here's The Thing and briefly discussed the upcoming West End production, describing some of the thought process and even singing a bit of a new song.  The whole interview is interesting, including about her work with Sondheim, but the discussion about The Devil Wears Prada starts at about 37 minutes in, if you're interested.

Here's The Thing Podcast: Vanessa Williams

 

Updated On: 4/17/24 at 05:27 PM

I love the cover of Vanessa Williams' new album Legs (Keep Dancing).  She looks amazing and the song seems like it'll get the dance floor going.

Already a fan of the actress who will be playing Emily. She seems great 

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Have they cut or added any principal characters since the previous version in Chicago?"

https://devilwearspradamusical.com/cast-and-creative/

According to the Wikipedia article, there were two characters that don't seem to be in the cast now. They are Lauren and Kayla. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Wears_Prada_(musical)

I went through the cast list twice, and did not see those names under the UK Cast List 

Jordan Catalano said: "OK, just cross checked the website with my Playbill from Chicago. Characters that aren't listed now are "Lauren Hunter" & "Kayla Ward". Characters now listed that weren't in the Chicago Playbill (and I don't remember if they were in the show, itself) are "James Holt", "Jacqueline Follet" & "Irv Ravitz"."

Thanks!

Oh, ok. I had a feeling those character were in there but the only real memorable thing about the show was just how God-awful it was. I’ll be at the Dominion when this new production starts and I’m morbidly curious if they’re able to do much beyond give it a nicer set and costumes. I just have a bad feeling. I hope it proves me wrong. I doubt it will. 

Can anyone share what was the orchestration for the Chicago production? Interesting to learn what is changed when the UK production is up. Thank you.

TBFL said: "Tom Deering's work on Tammy Faye is excellent. I assume Broadway will have a much bigger orchestra than it did at the Almeida and look forward to seeing it. Giles Martin ( son of the famous 'fith Beatle' George Martin ) is still doing the orchestrations I believe, and produced the promo CD of the Chicago production."

If Giles Martin is orchestrating or co-orchestrating DEVIL, he is no longer credited as such. Tom Deering is the credited orchestrator/music supervisor/arranger on the website and was not involved with the Chicago production.

Updated On: 6/4/24 at 11:07 PM

DiscoCrows said: "Has it been confirmed we’ll be seeing new set design/costumes/etc? I’m assuming so but was just curious. Excited to see what it looks like.

Though, the folding Eiffel tower in Chicago was a super cool idea and an awesome transition in the moment."

It’s an entirely new creative team so yes, everything will be different for this London production. Same writer is credited but it’s safe to assume she’s starting from zero and ignoring the Chicago book for this new London incarnation. 

MadAboutTheBoy said: "Please forgive me if this has already been answered, but will the West End production feature the same songs, new songs, or reorchestrations of the same songs? Something else?"

All of the above. Chicago was their testing ground of the material. It obviously wasn’t a good fit on all levels from casting to creative team hence why the producers still have faith in their show and replaced everyone and decided to treat it more ambitiously. Next month we’ll learn what songs were kept and how they chose to use them and the new material. Expect this new production to be more faithful to the acclaimed 2006 film. The Chicago production tried hard to be its own thing and we saw how that went.