Actress Emma Williams, who was to play Maria in Andrew Lloyd Webber's much-talked-about revival of The Sound of Music, has quit the show.

Emma, 23, who trained at Idle theatre school Stage 84, had been cast as the alternate Maria to the winner of BBC1 reality TV show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?

Emma was contracted to share the role with the winner of the TV contest but she is said to have been angered after her part in the musical, which opens in November, was downgraded.

Now Connie Fisher, who landed the prize role of convent girl Maria von Trapp in the BBC show, will cover eight performances a week.

A statement from Emma and Lord Lloyd Webber said: "Following the casting of trained actress Connie Fisher - the winner of the TV reality show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? - and discussions with the producers, Emma Williams, who it was anticipated would play the alternate Maria, has withdrawn her services from the production.

"Connie will now play all eight performances a week, unless indisposed in which case she would be covered in the usual manner by the understudy.

"Emma, who first rose to prominence in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, looks forward to working with Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Ian, The Really Useful Group, Live Nation and Jeremy Sams in the future and wishes Connie every success with the role."

A spokesman for Emma's agent declined to comment.

This week Connie Fisher, 23, described herself as a "full-time Maria" and insisted she would perform every night in the new stage show if she was allowed to.

Ten hopefuls, all amateur singers, were picked from thousands to compete for the role of Maria in the revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Each week Lloyd Webber decided who would leave the TV show and viewers had the final vote in the last programme, last Saturday.

Emma, from Halifax, started at Stage 84 aged 13. Principal Valerie Jackson said: "Emma is a brilliant performer and would have been a perfect Maria. She is already a star in the West End and I'm sure she will go on to do many more shows there."

As a teenager Emma appeared in two of Stage 84's productions of The Sound of Music, playing Liesel at the Alhambra and the Baroness at Bingley Arts Centre.

She was the youngest-ever leading lady in the original cast of a West End show when, at the age of 18, she played Truly Scrumptious opposite Michael Ball in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Aged 17 she appeared in The Parole Officer, a movie starring Steve Coogan, and she has since appeared in TV dramas including Bleak House and Miss Marple. In 2004 she starred in Bat Boy the Musical at the West Yorkshire Playhouse which transferred to London.

email: emma.clayton@bradford.newsquest.co.uk