Word: taymor
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None of this fazes Taymor. "I told them I wanted to go for elegance, not cute," she says. "The Lion King is a very commercial work, but what they've let me do is very experimental. I was totally delighted and surprised." Tom Schumacher, Disney's executive vice president of theatrical productions, first encountered Taymor when he was a producer for the 1984 Olympics Arts Festival, where he hoped to put on a musical she had co-written. That didn't work out, but a decade later--after Taymor had won acclaim for her presentations of opera (Oedipus Rex), children...
...Disney folks scoff at the notion that she was a risky choice. "I don't think the Julie part is the risk," says Peter Schneider, president of Disney animation and theatrical productions. "Putting The Lion King onstage is the risk." Schneider and Schumacher have both been looking over Taymor's shoulder in Minneapolis, watching rehearsals and consulting with her after preview performances. "She is extremely open to collaboration," says Schneider. Taymor seems comfortable with her corporate kibitzers. "If you really know what you're doing and have a strong concept," she says, "you're much more willing to listen...
...three by Elton John and Tim Rice, the original composer and lyricist, and several African tribal numbers adapted from music written for the film by Hans Zimmer and Mark Mancina. Getting her complex production into stageworthy shape, however, has not been easy. First, just before rehearsals started in Minneapolis, Taymor had to have emergency gallbladder surgery. Then, she faced a host of technical problems, from malfunctioning props to elaborate scene changes that couldn't be made quickly enough. For the first few preview performances, the show was forced to insert a pause just before the big wildebeest stampede to give...
...Taymor and the Disney executives admit that tensions were high before the first preview, which was attended by Eisner, on July 8, but they were greatly relieved when the show came off without a major hitch and drew an enthusiastic response from the audience. Theatergoers continue to burst into applause at least half a dozen times each night when they first glimpse Taymor's startling designs. Indeed, though the show has a way to go before it is ready for Broadway (some pruning of its 2-hr. 45-min. length would help), it is an ingenious and sometimes thrilling piece...
...technical problems haven't all been solved. In one performance, Simba's father Mufasa's mask fell off just before his big death scene. In another, characters who were supposed to fly remained stubbornly earthbound because of a cable foul-up. Taymor deals with such matters each day in a series of notes to crew members. "It felt very dark as the grass came in," she told stage manager Jeff Lee one afternoon, referring to the women wearing grass headdresses to represent the African savanna. A burst of unexpected applause from the audience covered up a key musical passage. Timon...