TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Mane Info To Know Before You Go To 'Lion King'

ADVERTISEMENT

By KEVIN WALKER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 4, 2008

TAMPA - The original plan with this story was to list five things you didn't know about "The Lion King."

But we discovered so many interesting things about the show, which opens a seven-week run Thursday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, we expanded the list. The following come from conversations with Mary Peterson, associate costume designer for "The Lion King"; puppet supervisor Willie Wilson; and Michael Chamoun, director of production services for the arts center:

•"The Lion King" opens with a parade in which every character enters through the back of the auditorium and parades to the front. To make this possible, there will be between 100 to 110 seats removed from Morsani Hall. Lost revenue? Well, maybe, but the show will be here for seven weeks and is a such a popular show that the money will be more than made up, missing seats or not.

•Make that almost every character will enter through the back of the hall. The elephant is so big - about 50 pounds, 13 feet long, 11 feet high - that it could not be brought into the auditorium through the same passage as the other puppets. Instead, it will come in through a side entrance. It takes four people to operate this big boy.

•There are 230 puppets in the show, with a cast of 49 people manipulating them. There are rod puppets, shadow puppets and full-sized puppets.

•It takes four people just to get the costume on the actor playing Scar.

"I would say that's pretty accurate," says Peterson, who spoke from the Netherlands, where she was overseeing some of the European "Lion King" tours. She laughed, adding, "I haven't been in the dressing room where they get him ready in some time because there is no room in there for another person! But there is a person for the hair and the makeup, the costume, and another person who is just floating and doing whatever is necessary."

•All the costumes - designed by Tony Award winner Julie Taymor - were created with some part of Africa in them. Peterson said one of the main challenges for Taymor was to marry her own style with that of the established characters from the Disney animated feature film. The comic characters especially had to be immediately recognizable, per Disney wishes.

"When Timon and Pumbaa came onto the stage, you had to know who they were," Peterson said.

•The original costume for Zazu the hornbill was far too hot for such a demanding role.

"By the end of the night," Peterson said, "that poor guy felt like he was wearing a mattress that had been soaked in water."

So they had to come up with another version with better ventilation.

•A whole crew deals just with the laundry. Actors union rules require any garment worn against the skin to be washed every night. Outer costumes are laundered once a week.

•It took 17,000 hours just to build the puppets and the masks, Wilson said. Mufasa's mask weighs 11 ounces, while Scar's weighs 9 ounces. Each tour has its own "puppet hospital," where repairs can be made for the inevitable nicks, cuts and tears.

•The arts center will hire a large amount of local workers to help with the "load in" of the show - that is, installing everything needed for the show within the hall. Chamoun estimated there will be 22 carpenters, 10 riggers, six truck loaders, 16 electricians, eight props people and six sound men. This, by the way, is in addition to the people brought by the touring company. There also have been 12 phone lines added at the center.

•The touring company will haul everything in 17 53-foot tractor-trailers.

•It took two days just to do the "house strip" - that is, take everything down for what was needed for the previous show, "Tosca," and take out the seats, begin installing rigging, etc.

"It looks like we are pulling rabbits out of our hats," Chamoun said. "We don't do that. We pull out elephants."

ON STAGE

The Lion King

WHEN: Thursday through June 22

WHERE: Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Morsani Hall, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa

TICKETS: $48 to $133; (813) 229-7827

Reporter Kevin Walker can be reached at (813) 259-7975 or kwalker@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT