The North American tour of Disney’s The Lion King last played the Providence Performing Arts Center in 2017. After nearly ten years, The Lion King is back astounding Providence for a limited three-week engagement, playing Wednesday, May 20 through Sunday, June 7.
Directed by Tony Award winner Julie Taymor, The Lion King blends movement, music, puppetry, and design into a theatrical world that is epic and intimate at the same time. One of the production’s most memorable moments is the opening number, “Circle of Life,” when a menagerie of animal puppets stride down the orchestra aisles, and leap and gallop from stage right and stage left, before filling the stage. As opening night approaches, here are a few details about “Circle of Life” that make the sequence so remarkable and breathtaking:
- Director Julie Taymor and puppet designer Michael Curry designed, hand-sculpted, and painted every prototype mask that is now used in “Circle of Life.”
- Each mask is made from carbon fiber, which is the same material used to make airplanes, and silicon rubber. The masks are very light weight, usually weighing less than one pound.
- The tallest animals in the opening number are the giraffes, which stand 14 feet high. Two actors climb six-foot ladders, mount stilts, and enter from stage left.
- At 13 feet long and nine feet wide, the elephant nicknamed “Bertha” is the show’s largest animal and requires four cast members to maneuver her down the theater aisle.
- Julie Taymor has often favored actors without puppeteering experience, believing they bring a more personal, less conventional quality to the work. As she writes in From The Lion King: Pride Rock on Broadway, “an actor infuses the puppet character with his own personality instead of relying on generic puppetry technique.”
- The tour travels with 12 musicians who play over 80 different musical instruments from all over the world, including 55 different drums and percussion instruments and 13 different flutes.
Whether it’s their first time or their fifth time seeing The Lion King at PPAC, audiences can look forward to a magical theatre outing that is filled with wonderful artistry and jaw-dropping spectacle. It’s no wonder that the show has been touring North America for over 24 years; it’s the type of production you will want to see more than once.
Tickets for The Lion King are available at the PPAC Box Office (220 Weybosset Street, Providence, RI 02903), by phone at 401.421.2787 and online at ppacri.org. Extra Magic Packages, which include an excellent seat in the theatre and show merchandise, are also available. The box office is open Monday through Friday, 10A to 5P, Saturday, 10A to 2P and two hours prior to all curtain time(s) on show days.