EVITA

Actorsingers and Andrew Lloyd Webber

The Actorsingers, founded in 1955, have presented wonderful shows for over fifty years. During that time, we've presented quite a variety of works within the broad realm of "musical theater". Despite this diversity, one of the best known musical theater composers in the world remained conspicuously absent from our programming for quite a long time.

Amazingly, it was only last year in 2005 that Actorsingers first performed any musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Our production of Jesus Christ Superstar (Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, 1971) was extremely well received by its audiences and honored as one of the top musicals statewide by the NH Theatre Awards organization.

Making up for lost Andrew Lloyd Webber-time we presented his CATS (1981) in May — again to a spectacular audience reception — and are now poised to present EVITA (Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, 1978).

An Award Winning Show

Evita is the winner of seven TONY Awards including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book; and some other notable awards including Laurence Olivier Awards, New York Drama Critics Award, Drama Desk Awards, and so on. You can read the whole list on Andrew Lloyd Webber's website.

Nashua Premiere

We believe this to be the Nashua Premiere of EVITA, as no other company has presented the piece here. (If anyone knows otherwise, please write our web guy)

Content advisory

Contains adult themes and some strong language, though much of the meaning will go right over the heads of many children. Here's a sample:

EVA
Did you here that?
They called me a whore!
They actually called me a whore!

ITALIAN ADMIRAL
But Signora Peron--
It's an easy mistake
I'm still called an admiral
Yet I gave up the sea long ago

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

Evita is the critically acclaimed musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics) based on events surrounding the rise to power of Juan Perón as President of Argentina and the significant role played in these events by his second wife, Eva Perón.

It's the result of a visit to Argentina in February 1974 by Mr. Rice, and his subsequent reunion with Mr. Lloyd Webber. Evita is their last collaboration on a full-scale musical.

Like Superstar before it, Evita began life as a two-record set embracing all manner of popular music styles. And in like manner it produced a smash-hit single ("Don't Cry For Me Argentina") which would have people "walking into the theatre whistling the tune".

There are over 100 cover versions of "Argentina", which was written "on the spot", according to Mr. Rice, "and which neither of us thought would be a hit. After all who wants to buy a song about a country you've hardly even heard of?"

Dispensing with the prefix "rock", Rice and Lloyd Webber simply called Evita an opera, with the infinitely varied score reflecting the increasing maturity of their composition.

For more information about Evita and the fascinating Eva Perón, look at Wikipedia. You may find that your enjoyment of the musical is enhanced by reading about the woman it's about.

From that Wikipedia article, you'll find links to follow and read up on Che Guevara, on whom the narrator of the musical is based, and of course Juan Perón. Not that you need to have read these things in order for the show to make sense, but many of us have found it very interesting reading, and you might too!