Lion King Broadway Musical - Lion King Broadway Play

The Lion King: The Broadway Musical celebrated its world premiere at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, MN, on July 8, 1997. Now playing at the New Amsterdam Theater on Broadway, this musical version of Disney's greatest animated feature ever has already drawn rave reviews for its dazzling special effects and staging, the inspired music by Tim Rice, Elton John, Hans Zimmer, and Lebo M., and for its nearly magical performance by a cast using masks and puppetry combined with live acting to convey the atmosphere of The Lion King.

This production broke new ground in theatrical technology, attempting to bring to the stage such vast and sweeping elements as the rolling African savannah and the famous wildebeest stampede in which Mufasa is killed by his brother Scar. Far from shrinking from the challenge or toning down the scale of the film, director Julie Taymor succeeded in the superhuman feat of reproducing the film's vastness through ingenious staging techniques and experimental methods worthy of Walt Disney Theatrical, producers of the wildly popular Beauty and the Beast Broadway musical, which also debuted at the Orpheum.