Did Betty Buckley, Judy Kaye or Priscilla Lopez audition for Evita? — Page 4

I've been reminiscing with friends about the original London production of EVITA - and of course, I had to come look up what people have written here on the boards. It is a lot of fun to visit this thread from years back.

In London, at the time, there was a lot of press about Julie Covington not playing the part. The British papers (being prone to tabloid level journalism) hinted that Covington was an 'erratic' personality. I always kind of interpreted that to mean she was bi-polar and unreliable and that's why she didn't do it -- in truth, she later had some big successes on stage in the UK, but her career trajectory has been famously spotty.

When Covington declined, there was also a lot of speculation in the press about 'a big Hollywood star' type creating the role on stage instead, so that was not something that began with the New York production. The name I remember most hearing was Petula Clark (too old at age 45). The other name that was bandied about a lot was Raquel Welch, who surely wouldn't have been able to sing it.

When Paige was cast, it was all sunshine and roses (local London girl makes good) but when she began missing performances, the press had a field day - and that's when news reporters began digging around and bringing up Bonnie Schon, a more experienced American stage actress who had been Prince's favorite going into the finals but was a surprise loser to Paige in the end.

Paige didn't originally have an alternate - she did 8 shows a week - when she began missing, her understudy, a 21-year-old American girl named Susannah Fellows stepped in and made quite a splash. Reports were that she sang the role better than Paige and was more effective, especially in the early part of the show, than Paige was. (This scenario btw echoes almost exactly what later happened in the states with LuPone and her alternate, Terri Klausner).

When Prince decided that the best solution was to split weekly performances, there was much 'shock' when Fellows was not given the shared duties - it was instead announced in the press that Diane Langton would share the part with Paige (and that she had lost 20 pounds to play the part). And then that didn't happen - suddenly the shared duties went to Marti Webb who was brought out of retirement (at age 35) and promised the chance to replace when Paige went to Broadway to open the show (everyone assumed Paige would go to Broadway).

There was, of course, a lot of fuss when Paige was denied the opportunity to open the show in New York. And even more surprise in the UK when Patti LuPone was cast (the English press surmised the Broadway casting, if not Paige, would naturally default to the Americans, Bonnie Schon or Susannah Fellows who were already connected to the role).

So it was all very interesting. Reading over the comments in this thread, it sounds like Prince was rather sporadic and intuitive in his casting. I've often wondered why many of the ladies mentioned above never went on to play the role full time in some production of the show, but I guess Prince, in the moment of making the final casting decision at each step, just felt each wasn't 'quite' right in some way.

Updated On: 5/6/20 at 11:35 AM

QueenAlice, thanks for bumping this thread. So enjoyable to read it all again, especially currently with so much time on my hands!

One tiny thing.... when Diane Langton didn’t end up becoming the Evita alternate in OLC for whatever reason (and would love to know what happened), Susannah Fellows WAS officially promoted from understudy to ‘Alternate Eva’ billing, complete with her own colour photo portrait outside the theatre, and photo in #2 edition of the souvenir brochure. She was the first Evita I saw and she was mind-blowing.

Fellows left the production after a year to be replaced, as you said, by Marti Webb who had the unique ‘Special Guest Star’ billing for her stint as the alternate. When Webb took over as the principal Evita, her new alternate, the late great Stephanie Lawrence, was given the “who plays Eva at certain performances” billing that has been used ever since.

Updated On: 5/6/20 at 06:39 PM

Leadingplayer said: "I found an article from "People." That must be where Lupone got the Streep, Dunaway, Welch thing. Notice the article just says they wanted a stage role not particularly "Evita." I doubt any of those women even auditioned since they would have known the vocal demands the role required since the show had been done before in London."

Like JCS, EVITA was a hit concept album well before it opened in London even. Every musical actress I knew in NYC was working on her "Eva" years before casting officially began.

FTR, Betty Buckley did audition for A DOLL'S LIFE, which opened two weeks before she appeared in CATS. I'm told her audition was just downright "weird" (much more "Grisabella" than "Nora", but Paul Gemignani told me he thought she had the greatest voice on Broadway.

MTVMANN said: "I doubt Priscilla Lopez could have handled the songs...Betty Buckley could have.

On a side-note, in both interviews with Elaine Paige and Patti LuPone they mention that Movie Stars auditioned for the role. Who were they?"





Loretta Swit

Great thread! ALW really seemed to love having massive casting speculation about his shows, between this and Sunset.

Interesting that there haven't been shows in the last 10 - 15 years that have had huge media wide casting speculation. Unless there is something I'm not thinking about.

Here's a clip of Betty singing Don't Cry for Me Argentina in Boston in 1996

Bless you! She sounds incredible!

Have to say, though, she doesn't have the right voice for the role. I don't mean she can't hit the notes or anything. But she sounds--and it's not really in her style to sound so--too fastidiously "operatic" here. This is not a knock on Buckley as a singer, performer or person. Actually, I know a couple of people who have met her (I think one of them worked with her, or at least was a casual acquaintance), and she's supposedly a pretty wonderful person.

Jordan Catalano said: "Betty is such a different person now than she used to be, say 30 years ago. She’s one of the sweetest, most caring and amazing human beings you’d ever want to be around. And she also had (in my opinion) the greatest voice in the history of the musical theater."

How is she different? I've always heard good things about her. What surprised me to learn was that, though she has been famously cast as the levelheaded, voice-of-reason type (the film version of Carrie; Eight is Enough), she's apparently a very giddy and rather quirky person.

imeldasturn said: "If you have recovered from the shock of the tap dancing Jesus, you'll notice that I used the past tense. There are many threads on the topic on this board, joevitus asked a question and I answered as vaguely and tactfully as I could. Dozens people here would say the same. Also I'm sure you do realize that having a 10 minute interaction is not the same as working elbow to elbow with someone for a prolonged period of time."



Having followed Miss Buckley's extraordinary career for more than half a century, I can state that not once in all those years have I read a reliable account of her being "monstrously difficult". In fact, time and again her warm and generous personality are mentioned. I question your motives in making such a monstrously ridiculous and inflammatory accusation.

And now (happily for me) our brief and unplesasant interaction comes to an end.

Updated On: 5/8/20 at 10:46 AM