THEATER PREVIEW
“Disney’s The Lion King”
April 10-27. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Additional matinee at 2 p.m. April 17. Limited view seating starting at $68. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E. 1-855-285-8499, broadwayinatlanta.com and foxtheatre.org.
As the puppet supervisor for “Disney’s The Lion King,” Michael Reilly spends each show morning engaged in the same routine.
Every principal puppet for the show — that would be more than 230 — is inspected. Some might need a paint touch-up. Others, a complete redesign hours before the show. Reilly and his two assistants usually have to repaint some portion of a mask or puppet every day.
Then comes the actual show — and for those who haven’t yet experienced “The Lion King,” it is indeed a show, one worthy of its achievement as the highest-grossing production on Broadway. The extravaganza opens at the Fox Theatre — its first time at the venue — on Thursday, where it will play through April 27.
Once Simba, Zazu, Mufasa, Timon and the other beloved characters from the Disney-film-turned-theater-experience prowl onstage, steered by their human extensions, Reilly and his crew stay close to their walkie-talkie radios in case a call comes from a stage manager or wardrobe assistant that a puppet needs a quick mend.
Only Zazu, the hyperactive hornbill handled on tour by actor Andrew Gorell; and Timone, the cheeky meerkat guided by actor Nick Cordileone, have backup puppets at the ready in case of disaster.
And has a puppet calamity ever struck?
“Oh, sure, once a year or so,” Reilly deadpans.
Then he laughs. Of course, with a show as massive as “The Lion King” and with so many moving parts, a weekly puppet incident is more likely.
Reilly has been with the show since 2000 (the first national tour began in 2002) and says that very little has changed with the puppets aside from technological advancements to make some of them lighter.
“The Lion King” debuted on Broadway in 1997 and snagged six Tony Awards the following year, including one for Julie Taymor (best direction of a musical) for her imaginative staging.
As with its Broadway counterpart, the actors don’t come to “The Lion King” with puppeteering experience, but, rather, are trained by Reilly, resident show director Deborah Shrimpton and dance supervisor Geoff Myers.
“I’ll teach the giraffe stilts, but other than that, it’s kind of a village that teaches the puppets,” Reilly says during a call from Seattle, where “The Lion King” played last week before heading to the Southeast. “It’s a lot of layers. With Zazu, when an actor approaches the audition, it gets a ways in before he’s introduced to the puppet. You don’t realize how many small muscles in your hand that it requires to (operate Zazu), and the majority of us don’t have those muscles built up.”
While Zazu is the most difficult puppet to manipulate because of those hand requirements, it’s the mask of Mufasa — Simba’s proud, powerful father — that Reilly pegs as his favorite.
“It really does represent the circle of life,” he says.
Ah yes, that indelible theme song written by Elton John and Tim Rice. Along with the Oscar-winning “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and the Oscar-nominated “Hakuna Matata,” “Circle of Life” showcases another reason why the movie and subsequent theatrical production have reached stratospheric heights on Broadway and on tour: “The Lion King” music is already ingrained in generations of viewers, and one of the reasons the story has played so well to a live crowd.
Reilly also attributes the massive success of the show to its groundbreaking nature.
“We took a cartoon and put it onstage and made it into something that wasn’t a cartoon anymore,” he says. “It’s so beautiful. We went from a pretty amazing movie and made it into something that is its own thing. A lot of shows now will take a movie and put it onstage, but I really think we made it a theater piece.”
That theater piece also helps foster the use of puppets rather than special effects on screen and on stage. The Center for Puppetry Arts has some of the masks and a puppet from the show on display in the exhibit “The Lion King: Up Close” through April 27.
The use of puppets is something that Reilly hopes won’t become extinct due to CGI and special effects.
“It’s funny, you’ll watch ‘The Lion King’ and you’ve stopped looking at the actors and you’re staring at the puppets and wondering when they’re going to talk again,” he says. “There’s something magical about that and something you can’t do with special effects all the time. When it’s done well, it shows.”
