A reimagined “Evita,” with Rachel Zegler portraying the Argentine first lady like a pop star, was a sensation last year in London, drawing crowds into the theater, and to the streets just outside it. Next year, the musical, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, is transferring to Broadway.
The show’s producers announced on Wednesday that this “Evita,” reconceived by the British director Jamie Lloyd, would play at an unspecified Shubert theater next spring. Zegler, who earlier this month won an Olivier Award for her performance in the London run, will reprise the role in New York.
There will be one key difference. In London, a signature element of the production was that, at each performance, Zegler sang the show’s best known song, “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” outdoors, from a theater balcony, for a crowd of nonpaying onlookers. The scene (which ticket holders could see on a screen) had symbolic value — Eva Perón, although ultimately powerful and wealthy, often professed her solidarity with the working poor.
But in New York, that feat will not be repeated. “When we started discussing a New York production, it became apparent that our Palladium staging of ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ would not be possible,” Lloyd said in a statement. “I am really excited to explore a new idea, made especially for Broadway.”
Why outdoors in London and not in New York? The production did not offer a specific explanation, but in recent months Lloyd Webber has been clear that he believes the level of gun violence in the United States made the outdoor scene too risky. “The one thing that absolutely cannot happen is what we did in London on the balcony,” he told USA Today last month. “We can’t do that in New York. I mean, something awful could happen. We have gun laws in Britain.”
Other concerns arose, too, including the complexity of tempting large crowds of spectators to assemble regularly along a congested Times Square street. “There are many creative and practical considerations,” Lloyd said in an telephone interview. “There’s not one reason why we’re doing it differently — there’s many many different considerations.”
Lloyd said he already has a new concept for staging the scene, but that he’s not ready to share it with the public.
“Evita,” which was conceived as a rock opera, originally opened in London in 1978. That production, directed by Hal Prince, ran for nearly eight years. Prince also directed the first Broadway production, which opened in 1979, won seven Tony Awards, including for best musical, and ran until 1983. The show was revived on Broadway once before, in 2012. In 1996 it was also adapted into a movie, starring Madonna.
Next year’s revival will be produced by Lloyd’s production arm, the Jamie Lloyd Company and, Lloyd Webber’s production team, Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals, which is led by Michael Harrison.
Zegler, 24, a New Jersey native, had her breakout role in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 film adaptation of “West Side Story.” She has worked steadily since, and in 2024 she starred in a Broadway production of “Romeo + Juliet.”
Lloyd, 45, has built his reputation with radically rethought revivals of classic works by Pinter, Ibsen, Sondheim, Lloyd Webber and Shakespeare, among others. He directed the Tony-winning 2024 Broadway revival of Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” (which featured one of the lead actors singing the title song while walking backstage and through Shubert Alley) as well as this season’s Broadway revival of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” and this fall he is planning to bring to Broadway a revival of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” which he previously directed in London.
This production is Lloyd’s second go at “Evita” — he previously directed the show at Regent’s Park Open Air Theater in London in 2019.
“It is, I think, one of the all-time great musicals, and I’m a huge fan of the score, and it’s a fascinating character,” Lloyd said. “The puzzle is how you reinvent it, because Hal Prince’s production was iconic. Part of the fun of it is how you reinvent each and every moment.”
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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