Music 324
November 16th, 2013 Lion King Musical Outline
What musical theatre does best is to be abstract, not literal reality. Julie Taymor director of The Lion King, did exactly this when she directed the musical The Lion King. The Lion King
Broadway show in 1997 won six Tony awards, eight Drama Desk awards and the Theatrical
World Award. Everything in this show including lighting, choreography, orchestration, scenery, costume design, and performance all came together to make an unforgettable masterpiece.
Director,choreographer, and designer Judith Taymor transformed the staged musical The Lion
King through ingenious puppet designs, inventive choreography, and the additional atmospheric
African American musical scoring. (1 Book 298) In the last century, no other musical American musical has had as much success, specifically financially, as The Lion King. In the broadway musical The Lion King we see that two very different songs “Shadowland” and “I Just Can’t
Wait to Be King” illustrate how musical elements all have an important role to provide an audio and visual representation of what the director wanted to portray. Michael Eisner, the chief of executive officer of The Walt Disney company and Julie
Taymor, american director of theatre opera and film created this musical that was based on the
Disney animated film. Michael Eisner was born on March 7, 1952, in Mount Kisco, New York.
Former Disney CEO of the Walt Disney company Michael Eisner, brought two major Disney productions Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King to broadway stages. The most successful of
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these two was the 20th century musical The Lion King. Prior to being the Chief Executive
Officer of Walt Disney, Eisner worked for ABC Primetime. Following the death of Walter
Eisner Disney, Michael Eisner was presented the chance to run the company. Sid Bass and Roy
Edward Disney brought in Michael Eisner in 1984 hoping it would strengthen the company.
Eisner