ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This summer's most talked about performance on London's West End is not actually on stage. Doesn't even require a ticket - NPR's Lauren Frayer explains.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: It's kind of a bizarre hour for London's theater district to be hopping. Tourists have all disappeared behind the theater doors. The evening performances are well underway. And yet, I am shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of people streaming down to stand in front of the Palladium theater. There are barricades. The roads are closed to traffic.
Are you going where I'm going?
AMY BAILUFF: We're going to see Rachel Zegler sing "Evita" - "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina.".
FRAYER: Amy and Mark Bailuff from Fargo, North Dakota, are here for the musical "Evita," about the life and times of Eva Peron, Argentina's first lady in the 1940s and early '50s. The lead role is played by Zegler, who was in Disney's "Snow White" movie.
MARK BAILUFF: She's Snow White. What was she in?
A BAILUFF: "West Side Story."
M BAILUFF: "West Side Story". There we go.
A BAILUFF: I got the Rachel Zegler trivia going on.
FRAYER: But the Bailiff family does not have tickets. They're here to see what Zegler does outside the theater. Around 9 p.m., at the start of Act 2, Andrew Lloyd Webber's soundtrack gets piped out onto the street and the star emerges on a balcony...
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER AND TIM RICE SONG, "DON'T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA")
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Woo.
(CHEERING)
FRAYER: ... To sing the musical's signature song to passersby in the street...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA")
RACHEL ZEGLER: (As Eva Peron, singing) Don't cry for me, Argentina. The truth is I never left you.
FRAYER: ...Just like the real Eva Peron, who appealed to Argentina's masses and peasants. The masses here - that's all of us in the crowd - essentially become on-camera extras because the whole scene is livestreamed back into the theater for those who actually have tickets.
JAMIE BALL: I think it's quite cool to make people outside a prop in the show, so that's quite unique for me.
ALANA CARLTON: We'll be on the screen on our West End debut.
FRAYER: Londoners Jamie Ball and Alana Carlton, and practically everyone else I meet here, heard about this only one way.
BALL: Online.
CARLTON: Yeah, just on TikTok. I feel like everyone has. It's all over TikTok.
FRAYER: Now, normally, if you film a show and post it on social media, it can get taken down for copyright issues. But that has not been the case here.
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: I'm very, very excited that this scene at the Palladium has had 50 million views so far on TikTok, fifty million.
FRAYER: This is the owner of the Palladium, whose name is Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yes, the Andrew Lloyd Webber. He wrote the music, owns the theater, collaborated with director Jamie Lloyd - no relation - and even petitioned the city to close the street out front.
LLOYD WEBBER: It took quite a lot of negotiation, I can tell you.
FRAYER: Now, this is signature Lloyd and Lloyd Webber, whose New York production of the musical "Sunset Boulevard" had one of the characters walk out of the theater and stroll down Broadway singing. Lloyd Webber admits he does worry, though, if crowds keep doubling in size every night here, as they have been. It looked like 1,000 people when I went.
LLOYD WEBBER: I slightly wake up at night thinking, if it gets any bigger, are they going to say, look, this is getting a little bit out of hand? But it's a thousand people who may be, you know, not able to afford to go to the theater, you know, experiencing something, which is a live theatrical production. And I think that's fantastic.
FRAYER: As for the people inside the theater, some of whom paid hundreds for a ticket to end up watching that famous scene only on a screen, a few people did come out of the theater grumbling.
UNIDENTIFIED THEATERGOERS: (Singing) Don't cry for me, Argentina.
FRAYER: But others were singing.
UNIDENTIFIED THEATERGOER: (Singing) The truth is, I never left you.
FRAYER: And some say they'll just come back tomorrow night and stand outside.
UNIDENTIFIED THEATERGOER: (Singing) I kept my promise...
UNIDENTIFIED THEATERGOERS: (Singing) Don't keep your distance.
FRAYER: Lauren Frayer, NPR News on London's West End.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA")
ZEGLER: (As Eva Peron, singing) And as for fortune and as for fame, I never invited them in. Though it seemed... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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