Evita's original set design

[BroadwayBenny]

Posted: 7/19/09 at 1:39pm

Hey, I am working on a project about the original set design and look for Evita in London and Broadway. Seeing as it has been a while, I was wondering if there any of you here with photographic memory of even better, still images.

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but things I remember include the black and white film footage and images setting an almost documentary style feeling throughout. The set being mostly bare besides this and relying heavily on lighting.

Any help or insight into the show will be most welcomed.

Thanks in advance

[Jon]

Posted: 7/19/09 at 1:48pm

It had iron catwalks that flew in, as in Sweeney Todd and Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Ragtime and so many others.

[blaxx]

Posted: 7/19/09 at 1:52pm

Also, if you can, look for images of its famous curtain.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 7/19/09 at 1:59pm

Along with the catwalk (didn't it track up and downstage or was that just the choreography?) there were small set pieces that would track on (i.e. the Peron's bedroom and Eva's dressing room). There were a lot of large banners too.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 7/19/09 at 2:10pm

The curtain/drop for the original 1979 Broadway production of EVITA:

[BroadwayBenny]

Posted: 7/19/09 at 2:12pm

HOLY HELL! THANK YOU BRODY!! Ive been looking for that image for years.
Updated On: 7/19/09 at 02:12 PM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/19/09 at 2:14pm

The Broadway production used several different stage mechanisms. The thing to remember about the set is that it was very fluid, and of course Brechtian.

The Casa Rosada balcony scenes were done on a metal catwalk that moved backward and forward as well as had a turntable built on to it that the actors stood on. There was a door on the catwalk stage left (there was a funny story that Evita's "Don't Cry For Me..." dress was too big to fit through that door).

There were lights built into the floor of the stage that lit in circles (used in the Buenos Aires number and the funeral sequences).

Small set pieces moved in and out. In the Rainbow Tour number, Peron was on a piece of flooring that slid forward. Also the bed in "A New Argentina" slid in and out.

Sometimes things were left to imagination for artistic reasons. During "Money Kept Rolling In" Evita sat on the back of a kneeling chorus member and used two other chorus members as a table.

There were projections of the original Evita. In the opening sequence, they used one of Eva Peron's old films and of course used news footage of the Rainbow Tour.

And as blaxx mentions, there was a really cool curtain that if I remember correctly had many different images on it.

You can see some of the set design in the commercial on the site that shall not be mentioned.
Evita Set

[BroadwayBenny]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 3:17am

Many thanks again for everyone's help. :)

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 10:31am

Photos from the original 1979 Broadway production of EVITA:

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 10:37am

The original production of this show was amazing. Unfortunately Patti was out the night I had tickets (front row center, too), but Nancy Opel as Eva was very good. All the other productions I have seen of this show have paled in comparison (and they used the original set design. costumes and Hal Prince's direction, too).

Updated On: 7/20/09 at 10:37 AM

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 10:43am

I would love to see a production of Evita, in my 25 years of theatre going this is the one I have never seen live. Hopefully the original Hal Prince staging will be revied sometime soon.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 12:19pm

My favorite set-related bit was the turntable on the Casa Rosada balcony, which Goth mentioned

At the end of "Don't Cry for Me," as LuPone was sobbing and throwing kisses and the crowd, onstage and off, was going nuts, the turntable spun around so that we were behind Eva and Peron--inside the Casa Rosada, as it were. And LuPone dropped the sobbing and cut across the applause with "Did you hear that? The voice of Argentina . . ."

And then the turntable spun again, and we were back with the crowd outside.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 12:29pm

re: the Casa Rosada turntable. When LuPone, et al spun around, did the crowd run under the catwalk and then run back again? I can't remember how they handled that, but for some reason I remember a group of people running.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 12:30pm

Exactly, Goth. I forgot that bit. But that was key to the notion that we were now inside the Casa Rosada: the crowd was on the other side of the balcony.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 1:13pm

Yup. The crowd would run back and forth underneath the 'Casa Rosada' as Eva spun on the turntable above. I always loved how the entire scaffolding would shake when that turntable spun.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 1:20pm

Also, the big screen behind them had a photo of the Casa Rosada facade projected onto it (which is barely visible on that picture BrodyFosee posted), and when the turntable spun and the ensemble ran upstage (to the other side of the balcony), the image on the screen switched to one of a massive crowd, so that's how we knew when we were inside the balcony or outside.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 2:20pm

I thought I remembered running. At the time, I thought it was awkward and wondered why they couldn't have staged that better.

[fgreene1938]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 2:31pm

WOW, what an amazing thread. There is so much information here about that show. I saw Evita in 1979 about a month after I saw the original Sweeney Todd and I remember many similarities in their staging. Hal Prince Both were directed and (partially) conceived by Hal Prince and I remember them as being stark, Brechtian and intense. Gothampc, you should write a book. Terrific thread.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 2:51pm

Oh, I liked that moment. I wasn't really aware of their "running," per se; just that suddenly we were on the other side of the balcony.

But I was young and impressionable.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 3:37pm

So was I Reggie.

The scene that made the biggest impression on me was when Eva collapses towards the end of the show. Unlike the romanticised film version, Peron drags her across the stage towards the fine plush bed that we've seen for most of the evening. As he does so, the servants move in and remove the red bedspread and padded, velvet headboard to reveal the cold clinical bars and white sheets of a hospital bed. The point was obvious, cruel and real: for all her ambition, riches and ruthlessness, she cannot escape the inevitability of her own mortality.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 4:02pm

Did the last tour have a turntable? I don't remember that. Did they restage that scene for the tour?

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 4:14pm

The thing that left the biggest impression the first time I saw the show was the "flashback" montage shortly before Eva dies.

[BroadwayBenny]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 4:55pm

This is great stuff. Those images are great Brody :)

Does anyone know the name of the artist credited to the painting on the curtain/drop?

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 7/20/09 at 7:39pm

That famous curtain/drop was done by one of the show's scenic, projection and costume designers: Timothy O'Brien.

[BroadwayBenny]

Posted: 7/23/09 at 3:31pm

Thank you again :)