Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Take the Lead

While its soaring songs and inventive choreography capture the eyes and ears, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita ultimately engages the mind with one question: What shapes a leader? The Tony-winning, pop-opera smash, which first hit the stage in 1978 and went on to have more than 1500 Broadway shows, looks at the life and times of Eva Perón. The model-turned-actress climbed — or, as some accounts have it, slept — her way up the ladder, quickly stealing the heart of Argentina’s most powerful man, Juan Perón, and of the country itself as its young and short-lived first lady. White River Junction’s regional, professional theater Northern Stage takes “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” and the musical’s other hit songs for a spin through May 8.