An Exclusive Behind The Scenes Look At The Lion King Musical

Last week, Eliana and I went on a mommy-daughter date to see Disney’s The Lion King at Dallas Summer Musicals. It was a dream come true for me to see my favorite animated film of all times on the stage and Eliana was so excited about the adventure that she brought her Simba plush along.

Disney’s The Lion King is one of the most popular stage musicals in the world and I’m excited that it has returned to the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas for the 4th time. The Lion King is the only show in history to generate 6 productions worldwide running 15 or more years. Nearly 1100 people worldwide directly employed by The Lion King!

I learned that Disney’s The Lion King has been played over 100 cities in 20 countries on every continent except Antarctica and the North American touring productions of The Lion King have been seen by more than 19 million theatergoers. That’s remarkable!

Something I found interesting is that Lion King has been performed in eight different languages (Japanese, German, Korean, French, Dutch, Spanish, Mandarin, and Portuguese), too.

I had been obsessed with seeing The Lion King on stage ever since Julie Taymor was honored as a Disney Legend when I went to D23 Expo. Julie Taymor is the show’s director, costume designer and mask co-designer (with Michael Curry, one of the country’s leading puppet experts) and continues to play an integral part in the show’s ongoing success. Well known for mythical staging inspired by international theatrical forms, Julie Taymor was the first woman to win a Tony Award for Direction of a Musical!

The Lion King has won six 1998 Tony Awards: Best Musical, Best Scenic Design (Richard Hudson), Best Costume Design (Julie Taymor), Best lighting design (Donald Holder), Best Choreography (Garth Fagan), and Best Direction of a Musical. The Lion King has also earned more than 70 major arts awards including the 1998 NY Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, the 1999 Grammy® for Best Musical Show Album, the 1999 Evening Standard Award for Theatrical Event of the Year and the 1999 Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Choreography and Best Costume Design.

We arrived early so we could experience the DSM Savanna, which is ideal for the little ones you bring to this family-friendly musical. The Savanna experience starts two hours before the performance with the purchase of a DSM Savanna Passport.

The DSM Savanna is an outdoor shaded experience that includes food trucks with snacks for sale, face-painting, craft activities, cash bars with cold refreshments, and dedicated restroom facilities… and a free snow cone!

The award-winning set of Disney’s The Lion King are an experience. Pride rock and the Elephant Graveyard seem to be exact opposites, just as the lions reigning on each and their feelings.

The music goes beyond the already amazing score from the animated film and incorporates a fusion of Western popular music and the distinctive sounds and rhythms of Africa. Rafiki is my favorite character in the animated film and also on Disney’s The Lion King on Broadway.

There are 5 indigenous African languages in the show: Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa (also known as the click language), Sotho, and Twsana.

The Lion King is unique in that we see how the magic works on stage and everything is fully seen to engage the imagination and create an interactive style of storytelling. 200 puppets, 25 types of animals birds fish insects represented in show,14 lionesses and impressive shadow puppetry make Disney’s The Lion King a fascinating event for show goers of all ages!

The North American touring production launched in April 2002 and there are 134 people involved with the daily production of the show. They need 3 days of advance prep, 4 days on-site technical preparation at the respective venue to set-up the physical production in each new city. The show will run til July 7, so hurry up and get tickets!

I had the amazing opportunity to go behind the scenes and interview some of the crew for Disney’s The Lion King. I brought Elyssa with me this time- you know she’s amazing with pictures – and she transcribed the interviews for me, too!

First up, we chatted with Gregory Young, who is the Wardrobe Supervisor and has been with the show since the beginning (1997) and has been involved for 18 years total. It was very inspiring to learn that he started stitching clothes in high school, and then majored in fashion design and business, but ended up working in the banking industry.

I worked in a couple of banks and then those banks started closing, and a friend of mine was stitching for college of Alameda for Carmen Jones, the opera, and they needed stitchers, and that’s how it all started.

When he heard about The Lion King, he didn’t know what to expect and thought it was “a kid show,” but it turned out to be this great phenomenon in theater that he’s a part of!

I’m in charge of all the costumes, any the laundry pieces, underwear pieces that they have to wear underneath we are in charge of. In each city we pick up 16 dressers and 2 laundry people. And then we’re presetting the costumes, do the maintenance on the costumes, bead work on costumes, to keep it looking like it did on Broadway the first opening night.

You will love the colorful and majestic costumes featuring African-styled beadwork, corsets, armor, and cloth. The costumes are handmade in 5 different shops in New York. The fabrics may have changed, but the show is visually exactly as it was opening night.

If they change sizes, somebody’s maternity or something, we do alterations, as long as they’re in the show.

I asked Gregory Young what his favorite part of the show is and he didn’t hesitate:

That would the jungle. This is when Nala and Simba reunite and the Savannah’s dried up, and he takes her back to this lush place, and then all the sudden everything blooms and all these bright colors.

He explained that the details in the lionesses’ corsets and necklaces are all hand-beaded. There are 16 different types, each lioness has their own color and design.

His advice for moms taking their little ones to see Disney’s The Lion King:

You want to make sure you’re on time, because you don’t want to miss the opening; it’s the best part of the show. Make to take them the bathroom, so they don’t have to leave because there’s a part where you can’t come back in.

Next up, we went underground to chat with Darlene Drew. She’s one of 10 musicians involved in The Lion King and she plays 13 different ethnic flutes that range in size from a toothbrush to one that is 5 feet tall (I’m 4’8″!!): Irish styled, bamboo flutes, 2 are Indian Bansooris, and the others are Chinese flutes, Ditzus. I didn’t even know there were so many flutes in existence to begin with! Did you?

There’s a lot of percussion in the show, we have 4 different drummers, and there’s a whole interesting combination of sounds that make the score of the show, especially with the heaviness of the percussion, and our keyboards, base guitar, you know, the usual, french horn, and this is kind of the color that sits above the score, and adds kind of, I always like to call myself the spice of the show. Does that make me a spice girl?

Darlene Drew is so fun! She’s been affiliated with The Lion King for 15 years. She started in Chicago in 2003 for the second national tour.

It’s always evolving. And I’m not tired of it, which I can’t say that about other shows… I would say there’s always some freshness. I can’t take it for granted. I need to be very present to play this book.

An interesting fact about Darlene Drew is that she has her own farm and she is a mom to many four-legged and feathered babies. She travels with her dog and in her “younger insane days,” she even traveled with her horse! 

She believes that many adults interfere with the child’s experience by trying to show them what to see, pointing at things, or explaining things to them, but kids are so much more in-tune with their imagination and it’s best to let them engage with the show in their own magical way.

We can’t see the stage. It’s really a radio show to us, so the front row is kind of our entertainment!

We chatted about The Lion King live action and how one of The Lion King stage dancers was in Black Panther so can’t wait to see it.

You know Disney, they get it, they get it right.

Next up, we went back upstairs to chat with Christopher L. McKenzie, Jr., who is the Swing/Dance Captain.

His energy is amazing and he told me how excited he was to be back in DFW because he used to live in Downtown Dallas when he was 19 (he did the math by recalling his extravagant birthday parties).

I used to dance with a concert dance company here, Dallas Black Dance Theater, under the direction of Anne Williams and Melissa Young and they’re who I started with, I started dancing here. Like, I trained in Miami, Florida and New York City, but I started my professional career here in Dallas. And what I loved about being able to come back here now is the position that I’m in now, and this show that I’m in, cause it’s a really great show. We’re celebrating 15 years of the tour running… I’ve been with the company for a year and a half now, and I’m the dance captain of the show, and it’s immense.

He doesn’t like to title myself, because it’s who he is. Being in The Lion King was his dream. He was auditioning for 7 years! 

And I was never in a rush, it was just something I knew I wanted to do. When they called me I was like, “I’m ready.”

I was in awe the entire conversation. Everything that came out of his mouth was pure wisdom and motivation, so I know this post is getting long, but I know it’s worth it!

My motivation when working with a lot of people, especially people who are working hard consistently every day, is just to be there for whoever. I’ve always been a fan of helping out people and making sure things go according, and that’s basically what my role is here. Just maintenance and being available.

We were chatting about Father’s Day as his favorite moment EVER because 5 out of the 7 male dancers called out, which happens once in a blue moon, and he was able to do the show, stay focused, and maintain a great energy all throughout.

If a dancer or singer isn’t feeling well their day, there’s a show that has to happen, so I’m that step-in guy. It’s myself, we have 2 singer males, 2 singer women, 2 dancer men and 2 dancer women, so we have 8 swings in total to cover the show. But we have 2 dance captains, myself and Deidrea Halley, the female dance captain.

With the mindset the “We will NOT not have the show for Father’s Day,” he was able to do the quick changes for the “Can’t Wait to Be King” moment, where he played the part of 4 people!

I said, “Do not worry, guys, I’m gonna make something happen.” I’m thinking in my head, “Chris, what are you gonna make happen?!” The curtain opened and I thought “Beyonce can do this. You can be anybody, so you can be Beyonce right now.” And my mentality when I’m doing something like that is I take it scene by scene, I don’t think ahead, I don’t think back. I think scene by scene and that’s my success, that’s how I do it. Live in the moment. Live in the moment!

Listen, if I’m thinking about tomorrow, this day goes past, and now tomorrow’s here and I’m like, “I still haven’t even completed the thought.” Do. The. NOW and then you can move forward. You know, you can always take inspirations from your past and the present but, do the now. And that’s what gets me through the show, and then before I knew it, we were at the last scene I’m like, “We did it!”

And the honor of all of this is the message of the story, of the show, oh my gosh it’s sensational because the great thing about it is the message is so universal. Yes, the show is about Simba and the king, and him becoming the king, but the most important part of the show is that it highlights women. We have a Tony Award-winning scene called Lioness Chant, where the women go hunting and it deserves it because it is just so powerful. It’s all the ensemble women, dancers and singers, and they’re on the stage, and they’re creating this comradery among each other, they have the young Nala and then my favorite favorite part of this scene is we have the men singing off stage, so they’re basically the backbone of the women, however, they’re encouraging them. 

So you hear like, the heartbeat the pulse of the women as they’re living their best lives and being represented in a strong manner, and not in a weak and meek manner like “uuoogghhh” it’s like “RRRRRROOAAR we’re here!” and it’s in their natural habitat, you’re going to do what you know how to do best, to hunt; to bring life to the others, you know, around. And at first I saw this scene and I’m like, ” So the empowerment of those women and that scene all goes to show you that everybody’s necessary. You have a man, you have a woman, but you can’t not pay homage to either one more than the other. You need ’em all! You need them all. Same thing with race, and same thing with with anything, you need every aspect of life. One aspect gone, guess what? You’re incomplete. And you’re gonna feel it because you’re human. And when I say human that’s because you feel, you’re not a perfect thing. Whether you’re an animal, whether you’re a human being, you feel something, and that’s what I love about the message of this show. You feel something. You’re gonna leave feeling some kind of way!

Last, but certainly not least, we went back behind the stage to chat with Michael Reilly, who is the Puppet Supervisor. He has been in the show since 1999 and on tour since 2006.

When I got the call, it was just, it was such a big show, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready, I was like, “Oh, I’m not sure I can do that,” but you just learn every single day, and even now after 18 years, you learn something every single day, because it’s always different, too. And you challenge yourself.

The story of how he got started was pretty fascinating and inspiring, as well. My entire recording all I said was “WOW,” and “Oh My Goodness,” and GASP!

I grew up in Toronto, Canada, and I’ve been to Technical school, and I learned how to paint and fix cars and fix electronics, and I never knew what I was gonna do. So when I was 16 one day I got a call, they wanted somebody to work in the theater, and I was like, “Okay, I’ll do it,” so I went in work in a show called CATS, my first show ever, and I LOVED it. Loved it, so I just fell in love with theater and because I had a technical school background, they would almost give me, like, the really weird stuff. That was before puppets were big in theater… they’re like, “Fix this!” and I could do it, so, then I fell into puppetry and The Lion King came along, and the rest is history.

He showed me the puppets and the masks let me touch them! It was surreal. Julie Taymor was inspired by African masks because they are used over the head instead of over the face and are essential in storytelling and ceremonies.

The Lion King masks are abstract, stylized, and have a depth to them, featuring texture and organic materials, fibers, and wood.

The Scar mask is mechanical and he moves his head, so the actor actually controls it himself. He has a type of remote hidden in his hand to move the mask. It was cool and a bit creepy, too. I mean, I don’t know anyone who is fond of Scar anyway, right?

We paint them and then make the little sticks. We actually have to whittle them by hand, with a knife, so we make the little sticks, glue them on and glue the hair, and the same thing with Simba, you get a horse tail, and then you just cut it up and paint it and wrap the sticks with sinew, and kind of little pieces of leather.. There’s so much detail that you can’t see from the audience necessarily, but for us that’s where everything is, the details, you know? Cause we could just wash it with paint and no one would know, but we would know, so we painstakingly do every little detail.

I love all the puppets, but Mufasa is probably my favorite, cause he kinda is the circle of life, he’s very symmetrical. Like big sun, he really is the father figure for the show, not just for Simba, but for the show.

Zazu’s wings are made out of  a nylon-like parachute material, which is very strong and doesn’t fray, so the bird doesn’t look fuzzy.

Reilly is a many-times uncle so he has great insight about what is great about the show for kids:

The majesty of it, escaping into it. We have actors, but we also have puppets, so they can escape into that, and really focus on the puppets. It allows them to pretend, and I think pretending is important.

He loves when he gets to leave the stage door and sometimes mingle with the crowd, and they start saying what they loved about the show Best Lion King lesson?

I think we all have to honor where we came from. Not everyone has a great example to draw from, but we all have to honor our heritage. That’s where life will lead us, eventually, because we all tend to turn into our parents. As Simba does! Hopefully, with some intention.

I’m so grateful for this wonderful experience and excited to check this item off my Disney bucket list!

For more information about The Lion King musical, visit DallasSummerMusicals.org and follow @dsmusicals on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. You can also like the @DallasSummerMusicals Facebook page. Follow along all the fun with the hashtag #TheLionKingDSM. For more information worldwide, visit LionKing.com.

Founder of the Positive MOM® and creator of the S.T.O.R.Y. System: a blueprint to craft and share powerful stories that will transform your results and help others do the same. Dr. Elayna Fernández is a single mom of 4, an award-winning Storyteller, Story Strategist, and Student of Pain. She’s a bestselling author, internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, and 5x TEDx speaker. She has spoken at the United Nations, received the President’s Volunteer Lifetime Achievement Award, and was selected as one of the Top Impactful Leaders and a Woman of Influence by SUCCESS Magazine. Connect with Elayna at thepositivemom.com/ef and follow @thepositivemom. To receive a gift from Elayna, click HERE.

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