CMU School of Drama


Friday, August 19, 2022

Panned 'Devil Wears Prada' musical is seeking a massive makeover

nypost.com: Magazine editor Miranda Priestly’s famous catchphrase from “The Devil Wears Prada” is a withering “That’s all.” But that — somehow — is not all for Elton John’s disastrous new musical version of the Meryl Streep movie. At least not yet.

2 comments:

Jordan Pincus said...

I clicked this article without hesitation. The Devil Wears Prada is easily my favorite movie of all time, and I had trepidation when I heard about the adaptation. Unfortunately, to see that it had been panned was not a surprise. I was worried this would happen, and the clips I saw definitely made me nervous. The amount of clever fashion-related roasts in this article had me dropping my jaw. I’ve had the chance to hear/see very little of this show, so I guess it really must not be pretty. I ask myself the question - if the source material is so - in my opinion, objectively - good, then how could the show be so bad? Jerry Mitchell being brought in rang a bell in my head - he seems like the PERFECT director for this show, so I hope that that clicks. What I WILL say is the scenic design of this show looks absolutely beautiful.

Jordan Pincus

Akshatha said...

This summer I worked with the Scene shop that built Devil Wears Prada so I have been definitely keeping tabs with the production and what I've been hearing. It was interesting watching the load out process because the process to determine how the set was going to come back and storage started to be discussed. I think adapting a movie into a musical, especially such an iconic movie is a very difficult job and I wonder if the producers knew that a test run would be needed to be able to see the direction the show should be taken. People were walking into the musical already expecting something so the limited run allows for the producers and writers to see what direction to take the show so it meets audience expectations. I think the character of Miranda and the direction they took it in was completely different than the movie, which is something the audience did not like. I think it's important to separate the musical from the movie and not completely copy it, but there are some very iconic things that are in the movie that people will just want to see.