Based on the 1994 Disney animated film, Broadway favourite The Lion King has taken over the stage of the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium.
This isn’t just any musical — bringing to life the royal coming-of-age story based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, reimagined to feature a pride of lions in Africa, as a live production is no easy task.
Humans transform into hyenas, birds, gazelles and, of course, lions, while other cast members control larger-than-life puppets of giraffes and elephants.
Michael Reilly has been the puppet supervisor for the touring production of The Lion King since 1999.
“I’m in charge of 230 puppets, a lot of different styles of puppets. Anything that could possibly happen to them is my job to fix,” Reilly said.
“I just love being backstage and putting all that work into something.
“You throw it out on stage, and you watch, and you hear that audience reaction, especially after Circle of Life.”
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The production travels from city to city in 17 trucks — two of which carry just the puppets — and the show takes four days to set up in each new venue.
Everything in the production is made by hand.
“That means that they can break pretty easily, because they’re all very, very delicate and very, very light — so a lot of carbon fiber,” Reilly explained.
The actors are the puppeteers and some of the puppets have an additional electronic element — like Scar.
“He’s built around all these wires and all these mechanical boxes,” said Peter Hargrave, the actor who plays Scar.
Hargrave guides Scar’s movements with a finger control.
“There’s a little ‘go’ button on the side that makes the mask go out — this is when Scar is feeling angry, more animalistic in his nature,” Hargrave explained.
Hargrave has played Scar for three years. He said there’s a learning curve, but everyone knows their puppets so intricately.
“We have dancers that come into the show that learn to walk on stilts as a giraffe. Everybody’s just learning a very specific thing,” he said.
When it all comes together on stage, it’s a spectacle.
“It’s just a celebration of language, it’s a celebration of dance, it’s a celebration of puppetry, and it’s all based in this really nostalgic, familiar tale that means so much to us,” Hargrave said.
Broadway Across Canada’s The Lion King plays in Edmonton at the Jubilee Auditorium until July 27th.
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