Lea Salonga, icon of musical theatre and a Disney princess twice over, is walking through the lobby of the Theatre Royal on London’s Drury Lane when the stage-and-screen legend Rita Moreno appears from the auditorium.
Salonga, the first female Asian performer to win a Tony and among the youngest to take home an Olivier after originating the role of Kim in Miss Saigon in 1989 aged 18, throws open her arms to Moreno, the first Latina to win an Oscar. The pair embrace before saying goodbye. Just last week, Salonga tells me, they were sipping champagne after Moreno watched her in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, down the road at the Gielgud.