'Evita' Is A Smash At Bay Street; 'Great Gatsby' Next

With its current production of “Evita,” Bay Street Theater may soon have a new titleholder for its best-attended musical ever.

“We’re so proud of it and people are really loving it,” said Scott Schwartz, the artistic director of the theater in Sag Harbor. “It’s basically selling out every night, which is exciting.”

The show is the third and final of Bay Street’s 2018 Mainstage season, which began with the world premiere of “Fellow Travelers,” about Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan, Marilyn Monroe and the Hollywood blacklist, and continued with “Frost/Nixon,” about British journalist David Frost’s interviews with disgraced former U.S. President Richard Nixon. Following on the theme of politics and major figures from the 20th century, “Evita” is about Eva Perón, the first lady of Argentina who died in 1952 while still in office.

“‘Evita’ may very well end up being our most successful musical in history, purely in terms of attendance,” Mr. Schwartz said last Thursday “We’re very proud of the art we’ve created throughout 27 seasons, of course, but just in terms of pure attendance and audience enthusiasm, this seems to be potentially our biggest hit ever. I will also say this journey with musicals, and taking larger-scale musicals and musicals that have been seen on big stages and treating them in a new way that takes advantage of Bay Street’s intimate space, really began with our production of ‘Grey Gardens’ three years ago, which was very, very successful for us, and continued with our production of ‘My Fair Lady,’ which was, to date, our most successful production ever.”

And like 2016’s “My Fair Lady,” “Evita” has been extended a week. The production will now continue through Sunday, September 2, making it a five-week run.

“People who wanted to see the show would frankly not have been able to see it if we hadn’t extended it, because many performances have sold out,” Mr. Schwartz said.

However, he stressed, tickets are still available.

“There are still seats available for most performances. And final week, which is an extension week, has quite a lot of good seats still available, and we wanted to make sure that everybody in the community who wanted to see the show could come,” he said. “Some people have been under the misapprehension that the show is completely sold out and they can’t get tickets. That is not true. There are still tickets available, but it’s good to book a little bit in advance, because usually by the time we get to the show on a given day, it’s pretty much sold out.”

Mr. Schwartz said that he is already in the midst of choosing the 2019 Mainstage season, with offers out to talent for certain shows, and inquiries out for certain plays.

Though Bay Street Theater has offered two plays and a musical each summer since Mr. Schwartz joined in 2013, he said that could change.

“My priority is bringing the greatest art and the greatest artists to our stage, and I don’t feel locked into one way of doing that. It’s really season dependent,” he said.

But he did say that audiences can expect at least one musical and one new work—either a world premiere or early in its developmental journey.

“We will definitely be a center for new work on the East End and a center for musicals on the East End next year,” he said.

Bay Street Theater officially announced on Monday that a stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” will be its Literature Live! production for 2018, running from November 5 to 25.

Literature Live! is staged for the benefit of both students and the public at large.

“We just did an internal read-through of the play with some of the actors in our community and some of our acting apprentices,” Mr. Schwartz said. “The adaptation we’re doing, I think is really terrific.”

The show will have a cast of nine and the story concerns questions of class, race and ambition, he said.