When we did Lion King in Minneapolis - and I remember there were many black African-American families who came to see it - those children had never seen a black king on stage. I feel tremendously lucky.īut also, one of the things that I'm most proud of is the whole racial aspect of The Lion King and that 20 years ago hadn't been done that way. I have had the experience, in all the different countries that we've been able to have The Lion King, of watching different aspects of the culture that comes to this play, that experiences it, or that in it, go through this process and it's an astounding thing to be a part of.
On the message The Lion King brings to its black audiences So it connects that way to me.ĭirector Julie Taymor says The Lion King musical is "doing what theater originally was always meant to do, which is, besides entertain, to heal." They left South Africa and came to America, like Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba - all those artists who had a voice to be able to speak with a larger audience through music and singing. We had people who left the country to go fight for our land. On whether the musical, which draws on influences from around the world, resonates with Lindiwe Dlamini, a South African who grew up under apartheidĭlamini: The story of Lion King itself connects with me because, you know, Simba is a young man who's trying to find himself because he's exiled, which is connected with us. And I burst into tears, as did everybody around me. Garth Fagan's choreography or the gorgeous choral singing from all of the South Africans, and these giant puppets would be coming into our rooms, and I think that we kind of knew then that this was something really special, before we had an audience, just we, the people creating it, were very excited.Īnd then we get to the first night and the audience just instantly starts screaming and standing and clapping and we couldn't hear anything. And we all would be doing our work but people would just start traveling and visiting between the rooms and their mouths would be gasping, you'd be gasping.
Taymor: We had four or five rooms: the main acting room, a choreographic room, a choral room and then a puppet room. On when director Julie Taymor knew the production would be as special as she'd hoped
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