The Devil Wears Prada already has a crucial scene about belts, but now it will have so many more belts, specifically of the singing variety. Beth Leavel, a two-time Tony winner recently heard sustaining C naturals for an inhuman amount of time in The Prom, will star as Miranda Priestly in the long-in-development musical adaptation of the Meryl Streep–Anne Hathaway movie, which will also star Head Over Heels’ Taylor Iman Jones as Andy. Sir Elton John is writing the music for the show, which really tracks with the casting of stars who can belt, while Shaina Taub (who’s been involved in writing music for the Public’s Public Works series, including Twelfth Night) is writing the lyrics. The musical has a book from Paul Rudnick (In & Out), Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County) is directing, and James Alsop, the choreographer who worked with Beyoncé on “Run the World (Girls),” will choreograph.
The musical packaged this casting announcement with the news that it will premiere in Chicago for a pre-Broadway tryout a year later than previously announced, in the summer of 2021 instead of 2020. It’s generally not the best sign for a production as big as this one to push things back a year, but these sorts of musicals do tend to take a lot of time to gestate. They’re probably just figuring out how to turn all your viral tweets about how Andy’s boyfriend is the real villain into a patter song.
