This Lion King' expands - too much - on Broadway

Tony Brown
Cleveland Plain Dealer

Sometimes a story is all in the tell ing.

The story told by "The Lion King" is a nice but simplistic little morality tale created for a kids' cartoon. <a href=http://www.cleveland.com/artsandevents/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/1056972602256820.xml target=_blank>more</a>

Lion King' is singing cha-ching' in Cleveland

T Brown
Cleveland Plain Dealer

That roaring you're hearing isn't "The Lion King." It's the Disney cash register in the "The Lion King's" Cleveland box office. <a href=http://www.cleveland.com/artsandevents/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/105860709822730.xml target=_blank>more</a>

South African roots
In the Chicago production of 'The Lion King,' six performers find a home far from Simba's back yard

Anne Taubeneck
Chicago Tribune

So, "Lion King" lovers, what does "Nants' ingonyama bagithi baba" mean, anyway? <a href=http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0308170405aug17,1,5321998.story?coll=chi-leisurearts-hed target=_blank>more</a>

The Lion King

The New Zealand Herald

19.10.2003 When the stage musical 'The Lion King' opened in Sydney this week, FRANCES GRANT was there to talk to its New Zealand lead performers.

Under a star-filled African sky, a mighty lion looks out over the savannah. Below the fierce eyes and flaring mane is the face of the actor, full of passion, as he sings to his son explaining the big questions of life and death.

The two faces create a powerful, dual effect of an animal which is also human. The audience at this preview of the Sydney production of the hit Disney musical The Lion King is looking at the face of actor Jay Laga'aia and seeing a lion and a man simultaneously.

'Lion King' chooses Academy over Boyd

By Douglas J. Keating
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Februray 11, 2004

The touring version of the technically impressive show, launched in 2002, has proved just as popular, filling theaters at nearly every performance and grossing more than $1 million per week from ticket sales in the 2,000-plus seat venues into which it is booked

Jason Raize in Broadway's 'Lion King' Dies

Associated Press on Yahoo
February 10, 2004

NEW YORK - Jason Raize, who played the older Simba in the original Broadway company of "The Lion King," has died at 28.

...

Raize was chosen for the role of Simba, who changes from a callow young lion to the aware adult played by Raize, after a series of grueling auditions for "Lion King" director Julie Taymor and choreographer Garth Fagan.

Mystery over stage star's death in bush

By CANDANCE SUTTON and CHRIS SAMS
February 15, 2004
The Sydney Sun-Herald

One of the state's most famous horse-breeding studs is at the centre of the death of Broadway star Jason Raize Rothenberg.

The body of Raize - who played the role of Simba in the Broadway version of The Lion King - was found hanged in an outlying shed on Hardwicke Stud at Yass on February 7.

Lion King' Coming To Bushnell

By FRANK RIZZO,
The Hartford Courant
March 12, 2004

The national tour of "The Lion King," the show that theaters across the country have been eagerly awaiting to bolster sagging subscriptions, will come to the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in two years.

'Lion King's' South Africans talk about life post-apartheid

Chad Jones

MORE than 10,000 miles from her native land, Thandazile A. Soni can get terribly homesick.

“Lush” and “breathtaking” hardly seem descriptive enough for last night’s official reopening of the Opera House with hometown girl Julie Taymor’s version of Disney’s “The Lion King.”
From the moment the audience stepped into the lavishly restored theater, atmosphere was everything. Every detail of the 1928 house has been lovingly restored, from the beautiful ceiling paintings to the bust of the theater’s original namesake, B.F. Keith.

....
In many ways this is a perfect marriage of place and product, the Baroque art, marble columns, and other symbols of bygone opulence framing the rich pageantry of Julie Taymor’s ground-breaking adaptation of the Disney cartoon. As the humans dressed as beasts of the jungle proceed down the aisles of the refurbished house, it feels as if you couldn’t ask for a better place to see theater.

'Lion King' roars at Helpmann Awards

Australian Broadcasting Corp

The smash hit musical, The Lion King, was the big winner of the 2004 Helpmann Awards in Sydney last night. <a href=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200408/s1172764.htm target=_blank>more</a>

Laga'aia fighting fit

by JONATHON MORAN
Australian Associated Press via the Age

"Each night is very much like trying to be a parent, some days are diamonds and some days are stones," Laga'aia said.

The actor put the show's success down to the universal appeal of the story.

...

The Sydney show has been seen by more than 800,000 people since opening, and internationally, with shows throughout the world, it has been seen by more than 25 million people.

The Lion King
by HELEN THOMSON for the Age

Now Melbourne can discover for itself what all the fuss was about. The Lion King is here, and it is all we have been promised: big, heart-warming, at times stunningly beautiful, with music that makes your heart race and puppetry to make you gasp. Best of all, it takes us right out of the realm of a well-known film into richly rewarding theatricality.

Africa is constantly evoked with pride and joy. Don't, whatever you do, be late for the opening.

published: December 29, 2005

Loud Message Of Leonine Love
`Lion King' Stuns With Special Effects, Though Simba's Tale Is Formulaic
by DEBORAH HORNBLOW, special to the Hartford Courant

As the show on the Bushnell stage illustrates, there is a reason why the majority of honors bestowed on "The Lion King" belong in the technical categories. The show is, first and foremost, a spectacle, an African wildlife-puppet circus set to the percussive Afro-pop of Elton John.

published: April 24, 2006