Andrew Lloyd Webber has confirmed that Jamie Lloyd (Sunset Boulevard, A Doll’s House, The Tempest) is set to direct a production of Evita in London this summer 2025.
Jamie Lloyd’s current production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard starring Nicole Scherzinger has proved hugely successful, both last year in the West End at the Savoy Theatre, and currently on Broadway at the St James Theatre, where the show opened last week to mostly rave reviews.
Lloyd Webber confirmed the news about Evita in an interview with Billboard, saying: “Jamie Lloyd is doing a version of Evita in London this coming summer, and working with a director like Jamie, for me, is a wonderful thing, because he can talk from a different perspective than I do. The consequence of that with SUNSET BLVD., for example, is that we took the score a lot darker, in a lot more dangerous way than the original. But that is the joy. I’m a collaborator. The most important thing to remember about musical theater is it’s all about collaboration.”
It is unclear whether Lloyd’s production of Evita would be his 2019 Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre version, described as ‘a turbocharged, transformative revival’ (Daily Mail), and the venue’s highest ever grossing show.
That production, which starred Samantha Pauly as Eva Peron, had planned to transfer to the Barbican in June 2020 although was derailed because of Covid.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s smash-hit musical first premiered in London’s West End back in 1978 starring Elaine Paige. Michael Grandage revived the show at the Adelphi Theatre in 2006 with Argentine actress Elena Roger and Philip Quast, and touring productions were staged at the Dominion Theatre in 2014 and the Phoenix Theatre in 2019. Also, Nikolai Foster recently directed a new production at Leicester’s Curve theatre.
The rags to riches story of Argentina’s first lady Eva Peron features musical numbers including “You Must Love Me”, “Another Suitcase in Another Hall”, “Oh! What A Circus”, and “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”.
The creative team of Lloyd’s previous Evita included his longtime collaborator Soutra Gilmour as set and costume designer.
Dates, venue, casting and creatives for Evita in summer 2025 are to be announced.
Also in the Billboard article Lloyd Webber talked about the recent successful New York production of his musical Cats – Cats: The Jellicle Ball. The show relocates the action to New York’s ballroom scene, and Lloyd Webber hopes that the production will have another life.
He told Billboard that, “We would love The Jellicle Ball to have a new home. I mean, obviously it can’t just be shoehorned into a Broadway theater. But there’s a very interesting thing that’s happening now. It seems to me that what’s opening up is the possibility, the inevitability, of the fact that people don’t necessarily want to go into Times Square — you know, the hassle and everything, and then it’s not all that nice there, necessarily. I think we’re seeing the possibility that people will go to see live entertainment and theater, really, where it’s happening, and not necessarily feel that they have to be made to go to some conventional theater, which I think is incredibly exciting.”
The Billboard article originally referenced that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s next new musical project was to be a stage adaptation of 2006 movie The Illusionist, which starred Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel, and told the story of a magician in turn-of-the-century Vienna.
However, the news has since been removed from the article, and can not be verified.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s shows currently playing in London include long-runner The Phantom of the Opera at His Majesty’s Theatre, which this month celebrated its 38th birthday in London; and a new immersive production of Starlight Express, which yesterday extended its London run into October 2025.
Jamie Lloyd’s forthcoming West End projects include two Shakespeare productions at Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane, with The Tempest starring Sigourney Weaver, and Much Ado About Nothing starring Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell.
More about tickets to EVITA in London
More about tickets to The Illusionist
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