Fans were crying for Argentina when they missed out on a full Evita performance from Rachel Zegler.
The 24-year-old actress was forced to exit the London show following Act I on Thursday, July 24, due to an illness. People confirmed that it was announced during intermission that Zegler would not be returning to the stage as Eva Perón, with understudy Bella Brown assuming the role when Act II started — with an iconic performance of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” — and finishing out the show.
Zegler has not publicly commented on her departure or the mystery illness that stopped her performance.
Despite going to see Zegler, theatergoers were pleased with Brown’s performance as well. The crowd gave Brown a nearly five-minute standing ovation at the end of the show.
“Today really showed just how important swings and covers are within this industry!!” Brown captioned an Instagram Story on Thursday. “They are the pillars of a show!!”
Zegler made her Evita debut at the London Palladium last month in the Jamie Lloyd-directed production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s show about the former first lady of Argentina. (Perón was the country’s first lady from 1946 until her death in 1952 at age 33.)
News of Zegler’s casting in the stage show broke this past March.
“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,” she told Deadline at the time. “The opportunity to bring Jamie Lloyd’s singular, visionary ideas to life onstage is an honor 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.”
Rachel Zegler is moving on. The Snow White star “quietly split” from her boyfriend, Josh Andrés Rivera, “late last year,” a source exclusively tells Us Weekly. The news comes after Zegler was spotted packing on the PDA with a new man, Nathan Louis-Fernand, while attending a Sabrina Carpenter concert in London on Sunday, July 6. […]
Zegler is set to play the role through the summer. Her last show is scheduled for September 6.
“It’s a dream come true. I haven’t been on stage in a musical since high school [for Shrek The Musical, famously] and I missed it so much,” Zegler told Elle U.K. in an interview ahead of her opening night. “When you get to live your dream, you don’t take any second for granted and I’m not, I’m soaking in every second.”
Zegler said that she didn’t expect the show to “garner as much attention as it did” during the same interview.
“People have been camping out for hours before I go on and it’s humbling, beautiful and fits in the story very well,” she added.
