Next month, the young stars of JCA Theatre will bring the pride lands of Africa found in Disney’s The Lion King to our stage – March 1 and 8 at 7:30 pm, and March 2 and 9 at 1:00 pm to be exact. However, as we know the famous award-winning musical today, The Lion King, was almost a very different story.
First and foremost, it is important to note that The Lion King was Disney’s first-ever original animated feature! It is true. All the beloved Disney classics like Bambi, Lady and the Tramp, The Aristocats, and Dumbo, to name a few, were based on books. The Lion King was conceived in 1988 by Roy E. Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Peter Schnieder.
In the original story, the plot centered around a battle between the lions and the baboons and Scar was the leader of the baboons. Rafiki was a cheetah, while Timon and Pumbaa were Simba’s childhood friends. In this version, Simba does not run away from Pride Rock but is lazy and messy due to Scar’s manipulation. This version was six months into development when Disney decided to make the story a musical and the project director left the job. That is when Rob Minkoff came in as co-director. Using inspiration from the stories of Joseph and Moses from the Torah, along with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Minkoff retooled the entire story, and the development of the animated movie, as we know it, began just two weeks later!
Working on Pocahontas and The Lion King concurrently, Disney Productions’ most experienced supervising animators chose to work on Pocahontas because they felt it would be better received and the more prestigious project of the two. Most of the lead animators on, The Lion King, were first time supervising animators. Just weeks before the film was scheduled to be released, production in California was shut down by the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Despite the natural disaster, the animators rallied to finish their work at home and the show went on.
This little story that seemed doomed from the start grossed more than $1 billion from the original 1994 animated movie, $1.3+ billion from the 2019 live-action version, and is the highest-grossing Broadway show in history, grossing more than $1.8 billion and counting. You can read more about the success of Disney’s Lion King via InsidetheMagic.com and IMBD – while you’re there, test your knowledge with Lion King trivia!
It goes for every performance in our Bessie Setzer Frisch Auditorium, but you do not want to miss the magic of The Lion King this March. I hope you will join us for one or more of our show dates, and an unforgettable journey into the Serengeti!
Family, friends, and devoted fans of our young thespians at the JCA, please be aware that ticket information will by sent by email from the JCA Theatre department as we get closer to the curtain call.
Disney’s The Lion King comes to our stage on March 1 and 8 at 7:30 pm, and March 2 and 9 at 1:00 pm.
