Broadway Romeo and Juliet and screen West Side Story star Rachel Zegler will lead the previously announced West End return engagement of Jamie Lloyd's Evita revival, set to play The London Palladium June 14–September 6. The production has also shifted its opening night, which will now be July 1.
“Evita has been such an important musical to me since I was a little girl, when my dad and I would sing 'Don’t Cry for Me Argentina' together on my back patio," shares Zegler in a statement. "The opportunity to bring Jamie Lloyd’s singular, visionary ideas to life onstage is an honor unlike any other. The stage has always felt like home to me, and I can’t wait to make my West End debut in such great company.”
“I am so excited to be collaborating with the brilliant Rachel Zegler on Evita," adds Lloyd. "She is a phenomenal talent, and I am delighted she will be making her West End debut as the iconic Eva Perón.”
Zegler, who will be just 24 when the revival takes the stage, will be among the youngest actors to take on the role in the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical, almost a decade younger than the incendiary Argentinian politician-activist-actor was when she died in 1952. Zegler's West Side Story co-star Ariana DeBose had been rumored to be taking on the role, though ultimately scheduling issues took that off the table.
The fresh West End run, which follows the staging's 2019 premiere at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, comes at a heady moment for Lloyd Webber musicals. The Tony- and Olivier-winning composer's musicals have been steadily getting increasingly daring new revivals, chief among them Lloyd's current Broadway revival of Sunset Boulevard. A West End transfer starring former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, the production eschews the original production's opulent sets for a largely blank stage with a giant video screen as its backdrop. Audiences also recently saw an Off-Broadway revival of Lloyd Webber's Cats that reset the 1981 musical in a NYC drag ball.
The Evita creative team is also to be announced, indicating this new run may see changes from the production's earlier stagings.
Michael Harrison is producing for Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals, alongside Lloyd's Jamie Lloyd Company.
The musical premiered as a 1976 two-LP concept album starring Julie Covington and Colm Wilkinson, with music by Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. Hal Prince staged the original London and Broadway productions of the musical, which featured such stage luminaries as Elaine Paige, Mandy Patinkin, and Patti LuPone. The score introduced such now-standards as "Don't Cry For Me Argentina," "Another Suicase in Another Hall," "Buenos Aires," and "Rainbow High."
Lloyd's staging of the musical is one of two competing revivals currently circling the waters, along with a Broadway-aimed staging from American director Sammi Cannold that played runs at New York City Center in 2019 and American Repertory Theatre and Shakespeare Theatre Company in 2023.
Visit EvitaTheMusical.com. See photos from the 2019 run below.
