The Broadway musical based on the life of Princess Diana is set to air first on Netflix before its big stage debut. Diana had a May 31 opening date but producers canceled the launch since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the theaters to close indefinitely.
According to Deadline, Diana will be filmed for Netflix without an audience at the Longacre Theater. Preparations are underway for the cast and backstage staff to safely carry out the show. The cast will, also, record the album that will be used for the Netflix broadcast but the streaming platform has yet to set a date for when the show becomes accessible to its subscribers.
Prior to the lockdown, Diana started previews on March 2. By March 12, Broadway announced that all productions will stop as COVID-19 cases increased in New York.
Diana on Broadway stars Jeanna de Waal as the Princess of Wales, Roe Hartrampf as Prince Charles, Erin Davie as Camilla and Judy Kaye as Queen Elizabeth. According to the official site, the show will depict the struggles of the most famous woman in the modern age. The story comes from Tony-winning writers Joe DiPietro and David Bryan.
Princess Diana died in 1997, when her sons, Prince William and Harry, were only 17 and 12, respectively. Even in her death, however, she remains a dominant presence in the royal family. She's still mentioned in stories about Prince William, Prince Harry and their wives, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle.
In recent times, the authors of the biography Finding Freedom said that Princess Diana would have done her best to mediate between her sons amid their ongoing rift. Author Omid Scobie said, in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, that Princess Diana "would've stood up" for the brothers and she would understand their struggles in the royal spotlight. She would, also, let her sons work through their issues because transparency was important to the Princess of Wales.
Debbie Frank, Princess Diana's astrologer friend, said that Prince Harry's mother had an inkling that her son would one day move to America. At that time, however, she thought that Harry would be going to the U.S. to study at a university like Harvard.
The friend said that the U.S. had an appeal for her boys because of their sense of adventure. Princess Diana brought Prince William and Harry to her U.S. trips because she wanted them to see what's life like outside their country and they had many happy memories in the states. However, like in London, Princess Diana didn't have her privacy in America because she was, also, fawned over by the press.
