Viva Forever
Project omvang
After automating various ABBA sets, STS will now automate the follow up musical: Viva Forever.
In 2010, Judy Craymer teamed up with Geri Halliwell, Simon Fuller, the one-time manager of the Spice Girls, and Universal Music to start developing a musical entitled Viva Forever, based on the songs of the Spice Girls. Although the Spice Girls themselves were not to be in the show, they were to influence the show’s cast and production choices in a story which uses their music but bears no relation to their personal story. This approach is similar to that of ABBA’s music in Mamma Mia!, a show which Craymer produced, and help turned into a global phenomenon. Craymer consulted each of the former Spice Girls members individually to discuss the musical. On 28 August 2010, it was reported that Jennifer Saunders would write the script for the Spice Girls’ musical, Viva Forever. Saunders had twice previously worked with the group: the first time, appearing in the Comic Relief version for the “Who Do You Think You Are” video, the second, making a cameo appearance in the 1997 feature film, Spice World.
On 26 June 2012, all five former Spice Girls members were in attendance at a press conference in London to promote the launch of Viva Forever! The Musical.The press conference was held at St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel, the location where the Spice Girls filmed the music video for their breakthrough hit “Wannabe,” sixteen years earlier, to the day. The musical is expected to open at the West End‘s Piccadilly Theatre on 11 December 2012.
Plot
The musical is based on a band member named Viva who lives on a houseboat. The story starts when her band gets through to the audition stages of a TV show. The band get through multiple rounds of the auditions, but on the final round, Viva gets through, as her fellow band members don’t.
As Viva follows her dreams, Viva Forever! charts her journey into the world of overnight celebrity and its impact on her mother, and the friends she thought she’d have forever. From London to Spain and back again, as the world judges you, it’s all about who you really are and who you want to be, whatever the cost