3 hours Ago By Baz Bamigboye
EXCLUSIVE : Rachel Zegler , star of Steven Spielberg’s screen version of West Side Story and the soon-to-be-released Disney live-action Snow White , will make her London theater debut as Eva Perón in a revival of the garlanded Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita , director Jamie Lloyd confirmed to Deadline today. The show will play at the fabled London Palladium for a limited 12-week summer season, with performances from June 14 through September 6. Reached in New York where he’s meeting with actors being considered for other key roles, an excited Lloyd described Zegler as a “phenomenal talent” who will “blow the roof off the London Palladium.
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He said he was “struck by her incredible passion for this show,” adding that “she told me it was her dream role.” In a statement, Zegler told Deadline: “ 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. “The opportunity to bring Jamie Lloyd’s singular, visionary ideas to life onstage is an honour 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.” Lloyd said he knew there and then that he was compelled to cast Zegler “in her West End debut as the iconic Eva Perón,” and that he was taken by her “insights and ideas” about the woman who, as Eva Duarte, rose from poverty to become the wife of military leader-turned president Juan Perón. She was Argentina’s First Lady from 1946 until her death aged 33 in 1952.
In her last years, she was referred to as the Spiritual Leader of the Nation. Evita was originally created by Elaine Paige at London’s Prince Edward Theatre in 1978. A year later the production, directed by the legendary Hal Prince, opened in New York at the Broadway Theatre with Patti LuPone topping the bill.
The show went on to win seven Tony Awards including trophies for LuPone, Prince and Mandy Patinkin who played Che, the musical’s fictitious narrator. The version that will be presented at the London Palladium will be entirely reimagined. “This is going to be an exciting Eva for a whole new generation,” Lloyd exclaimed.
“I’ve heard Rachel sing some of the score – she’s going to blow the roof off the London Palladium,” said the director, clearly enamoured by Zegler’s lyric soprano range. Lloyd was speaking ten weeks after Ariana DeBose, Zegler’s Oscar winning co-star in West Side Story , told me that she had been in talks with Lloyd to play the part. However, she warned that she hadn’t signed the deal, noting that it could all fall apart due to other commitments, which is what came to pass.
Some have suggested to me that Lloyd had in fact already had an eye for Zegler before DeBose dropped out. The London Palladium has 2,200 seats, yet its intimate configuration belies that figure. Ahead of my announcing Zegler’s name, close to $4 million worth of tickets have already been sold, that’s likely to skyrocket from today onwards.
Zegler certainly has both artistic and box-office appeal. My colleague Greg Evans reported back in February that the recent Sam Gold-directed Broadway production of Romeo + Juliet with Zegler and Kit Connor ( Heartstopper ) recouped its entire $7 million capitalization before ending its limited 20-week run at Circle in the Square on February 16. I’m keen to see what Lloyd does with Evita at the Palladium.
He directed a version of it at London’s Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2019. Of that version, Lloyd told me recently that because the imagery of Hal Prince’s original production had “literally become part of our popular culture” it was “such a kind of challenge to try and tell the story from a different point of view, or with a different aesthetic approach that you really have to test yourself to do it.” One suspects that six years on, Lloyd’s more fearless about putting his own stamp — with both feet — on Evita .
In any case, he has backing from Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber to do so . Lloyd Webber has taken a shine to Lloyd, so much so that the composer suggested that the director mount two Shakespeare plays at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, controlled by Lloyd Webber’s LW Theatres. The Tempest opened late last year with Sigourney Weaver playing Prospero.
Audiences did not warm to it. Much Ado About Nothing , staged like a 1980s disco, has fared better with a joyful company led by the zestful duo of Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell playing to houses jammed to the rafters. Even the ushers holding those turn-your-phone off cards were gyrating to the beat.
Nothing beats seeing happy faces leaving a theater. I rather enjoyed over-hearing two dowager Knightsbridge ladies jabbering away as they departed on Wednesday night. One opined: “That’s the oddest thing I’ve ever seen, it really is.
Made me want to boogie like the young gals in front of us.” I flashed a smile and did a little boogie move for them. Lloyd Webber told me that Jamie Lloyd’s “the best director I’ve ever worked with.
” He said that after entrusting Lloyd to direct his new musical The Illusionist — coming in 2026 or 2027 depending on West End theater availability — and admiring what he did with Sunset Boulevard in the West End and on Broadway. There must be some dismay that Sunset Boulevard , starring an electrifying Nicole Scherzinger, which opened to much ballyhoo in NYC, has seen its attendance dip recently, and it will close on July 13. However, Scherzinger’s bound to receive recognition when the Tony Award nominations are announced on May 1.
The 78th Tony Awards ceremony will be held on June 8, hosted by Wicked star Cynthia Erivo. Zegler can be seen as Snow White when the film directed by Marc Webber opens in theatres on March 21. There has been a backlash against the movie for what seems like forever.
However, I’m not wading into that morass. In any case, I’ve yet to see the picture. Rehearsals for Evita start in London on April 28 when a new generation of stage stars will gather to reactivate Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, Oh What A Circus, Another Suitcase in Another Town , High Flying Adored, Rainbow High and You Must Love Me written for the movie version with Madonna, which won an Oscar for Best Song.
The new Evita is produced by Michael Harrison for Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals and The Jamie Lloyd Company by arrangement with The Really Useful Group Ltd. Let’s see if Rachel Zegler’s star power can help it travel from Oxford Circus to Broadway..
