*

There's a calm sense the moment you step into Michael Cerveris' dressing room backstage at the Broadway's Marquis Theatre. The lighting is soft and golden. Incense burns on a ledge as tango music plays lullaby-low from an LP spinning on a portable record player.

"That I have had for years. That accompanies me to all my dressing rooms," Cerveris tells me pointing at the record player. He then motions to the floor, a stack of old Argentine records scattered in a small niche, "it's not easy to find old classic tango stuff in the United States."

Cerveris plays Juan Peron, the President of Argentina and husband of Maria Eva Duarte de Peron, better known as Evita, in the new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Evita. He began to collect Peronist memorabilia when he went to Argentina to research his role and participate in a photo shoot with his co-stars, Elena Roger, who plays Eva and Ricky Martin, who stars as Che.