Isabelle, who has spent most of the pandemic hosting an entertainment news program in Puerto Rico, was well known to some music fans from winning a Latin variation of “American Idol” and the Billboard hit “Por Amarte Asi” before she decided to shift her career focus to musical theater and film. At the time, she described “Evita” as one of her biggest opportunities.
When Michael Donald Edwards, Asolo Rep’s producing artistic director, contacted her last fall about doing a concert program for the theater’s new outdoor Terrace Stage series, Isabelle said she wanted to do something different than the kinds of concerts she performed while building her pop music career.
Those questions of leadership amid a pandemic prompted Rosenthal to push for a new production of the musical, which begins Wednesday on the outdoor Terrace Stage at Sarasota’s Asolo Repertory Theatre.
“There’s a line in one of the adaptations that says, ‘When his people need him most, an Arthur will come to redeem them.’ I love that,” Rosenthal said.
The musical itself has been reinvented in recent years and for this new Asolo Rep production. Television writer David Lee, a co-creator of the hit series “Wings” and “Frasier,” has said he was a big fan of the music but found the show too long when he first saw it and didn’t understand why it took three hours to tell the story.