Looking for TLKoB midis

[HasiraKali]

One of my friends at work said he was going to write to Ellen and see if I could get backstage that way.

[nathalie]

I've been on stage + back stage, at the Dutch theater where it used to play.

Really cool, to touch the masks and stuff like that.

[Sharifu]

Lucky Nathalie! I want to do that!

I want to try to use the Zazu puppet.

[nathalie]

We weren't allowed to actually try it *aww* hehe.

But we were allowed to pick it up and such.
And those mask things look so heavy, like those wildebeast mask-things, but you could actually lift them with just 1 finger.

And the stage is so tiny, lol.

And cool to see, where all the whole in the stage are, and the chain which pulls that grass line, etc...

[Lion_King_300]

That's so cool Nathalie, someday I hope to be able to go backstage and see the masks and puppets.

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I was really bored this weekend... so I decided to have a little fun TLKOB-style and "shadowed" singing and dancing to two Lion King on Broadway songs, Endless Night and He Lives in You Reprise. Thankfully I have a large photography studio in my backyard so I was able to have enough space to do this.

I've been wanting to try do something like this for a long time and kept putting it off... but making these videos took a lot of time and effort (and a lot of takes) to memorize the movements and stuff.

Here's my disclaimer: I have absolutely no professional singing, acting/theater training or experience! I made these videos just for fun as most everyone here knows I'm a HUGE fan of the musical.

Hope you all like!

btw: the Simba "headpiece" I'm wearing I purchased at Walt Disney World Animal Kingdom (after much coercement from HasiraKali) It's about as close to the real thing as I can get.

Linkage to Tim making a fool of himself for the world to see:



Endless Night

He Lives in You (Reprise)

[HasiraKali]

Whoohoo! Yay for Simba hat! You know you wanted it And lifesize Clifton... ooooo

[HasiraKali]

This is pretty cool. Kissy Simmons takes us behind the scenes of TLKoB @ the Minskoff.
http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Video.aspx?ci=546472

I'm working on saving the file so I'll let y'all know if I'm able to.

[Lion_King_300]

That is officially my all-time favorite TLKOB "behind the scenes" video EVER!!!

Thanks for sharing, I'm amazed they got all of the principal actors in there! Kissy Simmons is hilarious, she was perfect to host this video.

"And now we're gonna go see Josh Tower - he's my boyfriend on stage, so HANDS OFF!"



What I would give for that German Lion King robe...

[HasiraKali]

Did you notice that they spelled Pumbaa wrong? I've got it saved I'm just trying to figure out a way to convert the file to something more usable than a swf.

[Sharifu]

Haha! That was so awesome! Kissy is so funny!

[HasiraKali]

The official site has some new images up. Well some of them aren't really new, but they're bigger versions of smaller images from the past. I squeed for this one...



They've also got some new wallpapers up. Again, bigger versions of old images but still whoo! Nice one of Jason leaping with his arm up. The biggest I've seen of that one was like a 200x150 little thing. But now... it's wallpaper sized! Yay!

[Lion_King_300]

Here are a couple of clips on Youtube I came across recently, it's far and away the best TLKOB TV feature performance I've ever seen. It's of the Korean cast:

Featuring:

Cha Ji-Yeon (Rafiki),
Lee Kyung-Su(Simba)

Endless Night/He Lives in You (reprise)

Lee has an incredible voice and it's great to hear the songs in a different language. There's also another clip of the Circle of Life scene and some people talking about the show (in Korean, which I don't speak) and that is here:

Circle of Life & Talk

[nathalie]

In Korean ??

I thought it'd be in English.

Cool, another CD to look for

*downloads*

[HasiraKali]

Oh yeah I saw those. He is pretty good. And not scrawny.

Oh the official site also had some pictures of rehearsals in South Africa.

[Zaya]

It's like a month back but Sharifu, I was allowed to try the Zazu mask, it's a wicked thing really, and that neck is super elastic and each feather on the puppet is hand painted. But loved the hyena masks better, the way you put them on and how they're attached to your headpiece and then move with your head wherever you turn...

[HasiraKali]

Here's an awesome article about the production in South Africa which begins previews on Tuesday.

'Lion King' Comes Home to South Africa
By MICHELLE FAUL
The Associated Press
Saturday, May 12, 2007; 2:03 PM

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- With an explosion of drumbeats, "The Lion King" has returned to its cultural roots, and its story of assassination, coup and famine, the destruction of a nation and hopes for its rebirth is finding a special resonance in Africa.

This first production with an all-South African cast, some new costumes, choreography and songs promises to make as big an impression on the continent's performing arts scene as the theatrical adaptation of Disney's animated film did when it opened on Broadway 10 years ago.

"To be in South Africa for this production has been the realization of a dream 10 years in the making," director Julie Taymor said. "As `The Lion King' expanded beyond Broadway, I knew it had to keep its roots firmly in South Africa and ... I am proud to say that now, we have brought the show home."

The new African home for "The Lion King" is the specially built Teatro at Montecasino, which has a capacity of about 1,800 ("There wasn't anything large enough in Africa," Taymor said) at a hotel, casino and shopping complex in Johannesburg. It cost nearly $14.5 million. The show officially opens June 6 (preview performances begin May 22) with tickets costing 175 to 375 rand, about half the Broadway and London prices of around $50 to $120.

It's a professional homecoming for Lebo M., the South African Grammy-winning composer and arranger who will celebrate his debut as a commercial producer with the new production. In partnership with South African theater impresario Pieter Toerien, more than $10 million has been invested, Lebo said.

He said his partnership with Toerien, who is white, was symbolic of the new South Africa, even as "The Lion King" story reminds him of the old, racially segregated, white-ruled country that forced tens of thousands, including himself, into exile, and where thousands died before Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress were democratically elected in 1994.

Taymor and Lebo spoke during rehearsals at the Pretoria State Theater, where, for the first time in years, they were rehearsing together.

The director said she was nearly moved to tears, while Lebo said he was "crying inside" when he spoke to children in the cast about the meaning of the musical.

"In a split second it hit me, these children could not even have been in the theater (under racially segregated South Africa) because they're black, and yet here we are in a very powerful historical second, bringing the `King' back home and delivering it to a center of what was meant to be an exclusively white bastion."

Indeed, the theater reflects that history of white culture, its walls lined with portraits of classical performers, all of them white.

Now, its high ceilings, which once echoed with opera duets, resonate with peremptory drumbeats and the four-part a capela harmonies traditional to South Africa's Zulu tribe. The sprung parquet floor and wooden barre used to practice ballet reverberate to stomps of the gumboot dancing developed by mineworkers and the shoo-shoo whisper of "tip toe" dancing adopted by black migrant workers wanting to keep their activities from white managers.

"Aiyeeeee!"

"In the middle of the hallway, I heard the scream and people just started dancing automatically," Taymor said. That kind of energy led to two hours of improvisation and a new dance. "I was working with the singers, but 'Oh my goodness! That's a singer, but look at how this singer can move! How can we use that?' And we found another dance."

Taymor said the experience was "a seminal event" in her life.

For Lebo, his music also was influenced by the gospel rhythms and harmonies he learned in African-American churches while he was in exile. He now lives with his wife and son between Los Angeles and South Africa.

For the child actors, Lebo drew a parallel between the homecoming of Simba, the exiled lion prince, and Mandela being freed from 27 years in jail and taking over the country. He said he wanted the children to understand how Mandela was "inspired by the struggle of humanity and the people of South Africa."

There were too many parallels for one young actress, who burst into tears during the scene where Nala the lioness finds Simba in exile and tells him famine and drought are raging at home, that his wicked Uncle Scar has devastated the Pride Lands and that he must return to save the country.

"This is what's happening in my country right now," she cried to Taymor. "The violence, the crime, the fact that women and children are getting abused and raped and nobody is doing anything about it."

South Africa's 47.5 million people have been freed from white minority rule but the vast majority remain impoverished to a degree that helps escalate crime rates that are already among the highest in the world _ especially for rape.

The young actress' anger reflects the disillusionment of many in a country with a booming economy that unequally benefits a white minority and a handful of blacks.

But "The Lion King," with songs by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice, is all about magic _ mind-blowing puppets, amazing costumes and fantastic masks.

At an early rehearsal when some of the masks were brought out, a bit of that magic began to emerge with the maniacal hyena laugh of a young black boy, the gallumping entrance of a hefty white man playing the warthog and the balletic leaps of an actor attached to puppets that become a herd of gazelles.

Lebo, looking to the past and ahead to the future, sees himself in a skinny kid in a group playing young lions: "A week ago, he probably didn't know where his next meal was coming from."

"The Lion King" has won more than 70 major awards worldwide, including the best musical Tony Award in 1998 and five other Tonys, and has been seen by more than 34 million people. Besides Johannesburg, it is also being performed in New York, London, Hamburg, Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, and will soon open in Paris.
? 2007 The Associated Press

I wanna know what the "new songs" are. Or maybe they're referring to the songs that were written for the show to begin with? I dunno. We'll see.

[Azerane]

that's a really cool article. It would be really cool to see it performed in where its roots lie. Would be more true to form, kinda thing. Hooray for the Lion King.

[HasiraKali]

I can't wait for the show to officially open in South Africa. I haven't been able to find anything about the previews, so it's kind of frustrating. It opens next weekend though. Yay!

[Lion_King_300]

Speaking of new TLKOB productions, the French company looks set to premiere in a few months, they already have a nice looking website up and a couple really cool videos here that were performed on a live preview/promotion show:

French Lion King on Broadway videos

The first one features a sort of remix of the They Live in You and He Lives in You Reprise song with Rafiki singing, and I think we get a preview of who is scheduled to play Mufasa as well as Adult Simba which may be of certain interest to some of you

The other one is a "One by One" clip featuring Lebo M.

Can't wait for the new soundtrack to come out.

OH, and I just found out that Simba's name is Jeremy Fontanet... feast your eyes ladies

[Tiikeri]

Sorry, but he's ugly D:

Nice to see the TLKoB spreading internationally though :]