Princess Diana musical heading to Broadway
'Diana' is set to open at New York's Longacre Theatre in March 2020.
By Will Stroude
A new musical charting the life of Princess Diana is heading to Broadway.
Entitled Diana, the stage show will chart the life of the late royal during the course of her relationship with Prince Charles throughout the 1980s and beyond.
The show, which had its world premiere in San Diego earlier this year, is set to open at New York City’s Longacre Theatre in March 2020, featuring music by Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan, who previously won two Tony Awards for his work on Broadway’s Memphis in 2010.
Actress Jeanna de Wall will continue to play the Princess during Diana‘s New York run, People reports, where she’ll be joined by Roe Hartrampf as Prince Charles, Erin Davie as Camilla Parker Bowles and two-time Tony Award-winner Judy Kaye at Queen Elizabeth II.
Billed as the story of a woman who “chose to be fearless, and as a result became timeless”, the musical picks up the story in 1981 ahead of Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles, an event watched by an estimated 750 million people around the world.
Diana would go on the establish a strong bond with the LGBTQ before her tragic death in a Paris car accident in 1997, famously shaking hands with AIDS patients without gloves – generating headlines around the world in the process – as she helped break down the stigma surrounding the virus.
In 2017, her son, Prince Harry, accepted an Attitude Award on her behalf at the Attitude Awards honouring her groundbreaking HIV and AIDS activism.
In his speech, the Duke of Sussex paid tribute to his late mother’s sense of social justice, saying: “She felt a responsiblity to shine her spotlght on the people and issues that were often ignored.
“She knew that the misunderstanding of this relatively new disease was creating a dangeorus situation when mixed with homophobia.”
Preview for Diana begin on March 2, 2020 at New York’s Longacre Theatre ahead of a planned opening night on March 31.
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