After 2 years of preparing, the Bavarian- born, Britain- raised child of a South African dad and English mom was simply starting sneak peeks of the musical Diana at the Longacre Theater when their Broadway run was forever delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (The program had its opening night at the La Jolla Playhouse in California in March 2019.)
“So, this show is about this once-upon-a-time princess called Diana,” De Waal informed Theater Mania at a cast occasion in February 2020, “and she met her fairy-tale prince, who was called Charles. But unbeknownst to her, he had a love on the side who was called Camilla. And the story is the workings of that relationship in a very public spotlight and what came to pass.”
De Waal, who’s 6 inches much shorter than Diana’s 5-foot-10, read Andrew Morton‘s 1992 bio of the Princess of Wales and invested hours studying YouTube videos to get her voice and quirks, including her finishing-school-caliber posture, ideal.
“When you’re trying to portray a painful moment at home, or nursing a baby, you don’t want people to be, like, ‘She looks like she’s in stripper heels,'” De Waal quipped to the New Yorker in early2020 As to what she observed enjoying the princess in action in old video footage, the starlet kept in mind, “She’s fighting, she’s surviving, but she’s doing those things with her shoulders completely relaxed, and smiling for the cameras.”
Asked why she felt Diana’s story stayed worth informing, De Waal, calling it a “dream role,” informed Broadway Inbound, “I believe the factor individuals will wish to see Diana is since she’s still such a big part of our zeitgeist and a part of our awareness. And I believe we wish to commemorate her.”
Diana is re-headed for Broadway and Netflix in 2021.
