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The Lion King’s Alton Fitzgerald White Shows Off His Kingly Quarters:

White invited Broadway.com to his backstage digs to show off some of his prized possessions.

The Lion King’s Mufasa, Alton Fitzgerald White oversees the entirety of Pride Rock’s animal population. White’s kingly instincts have filtered into his dressing room at the New Amsterdam Theatre, where he’s taken control to ensure everything is just right. “This is called Citrus Orange,” he says of the brightly colored painted walls. “It’s happy, light, not too shocking, but still warm.” Another perk of being king? “I have a window. Not many dressing rooms of Broadway shows have windows.”

Lion King’s Mufasa, Alton Fitzgerald White Shows Off His Kingly Quarters

“There’s nothing like fresh cut flowers in a dressing room. During the winter time, I tend to do Paperwhites and Amaryllis, but in the summer I love Orchids. They smell good and have nice, long lives.”

“I’m inspired by all kinds of music, so it’s important to be surrounded by sound. I have my iPod and pump up my speakers and try to do some sit-ups and stretches to get the blood flowing. Music always helps with that.”

“I’m not in much of the second act, so I keep my computer around to catch up on e-mails, Facebook and fun things like that during my down time.”

“It’s important to me that the room always smells good so I always have some kind of reed diffuser around. I like something that’s kind of woodsy and not too abrasive. This one is from West Elm and is called Incense Spirit. It lasts really long.”

“This is my favorite coffee mug, which I’ve had for years. Coffee always helps, especially on a two-show day, when you need that extra kick. The mug has a really odd shape, so it’s a conversation starter. It’s short and wide and looks like it’s been handspun, but it holds just as much as a tall mug.”

{Via Broadway.com}

Today, Shannon’s “Lion King” cast mates are coming together to hold a drive at the Minskoff Theater in Times Square, hoping to find a donor match.

Those who would like to become bone marrow donors, can go online to dkmsamericas.org and sign up for a swab kit that will be sent in the mail.

Results are sent to a lab for genetic testing and if it’s a match for anyone in the database, including Shannon, the donor receives a call.

“They’re having a drive in the lobby, and I hope a lot of people come out because they can save my life or anyone else who’s going through what I’m going through,” said Shannon.

“It’s a great feeling, performing for people and being young Nala, because she’s tough and I feel like that’s who I am through this whole experience,” said Shannon.

Shannon, who has no siblings, is part African-American and part hispanic, but of the 7 million Americans listed as potential donors, only 12 percent are minorities.

“She’s just a great kid,” said Joel Karie, a Broadway cast member.

Shannon was hospitalized for two months, undergoing chemotherapy. She temporarily lost her hair but suffered no other side effects like nausea or loss of appetite. She gave her family a scare when she developed an IV line infection, but it later resolved.

The cast of “The Lion King,” Disney Theatrical Productions and DKMS Americas, a bone-marrow-donor center, are holding two bone marrow drives in New York City this month. Their mission: find as many eligible donors as possible.

The drive was inspired by a medical case that struck close to home: Shannon Tavarez, an 11-year-old who most recently played young Nala in Disney’s Broadway production of “The Lion King,” was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in April and doctors say a bone-marrow transplant could be her only chance of surviving the cancer.

On July 18 at St. Malachy’s Church in Midtown and July 23 at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre, DKMS Americas will register potential donors with a cheek swab, which collects cheek cells to identify a person’s tissue type. Donors can also register online at GetSwabbed.org.

If prospective donors match Shannon or other people in need of bone-marrow transplants, the charity will contact the prospective donor for future tests. “My daughter was a healthy, happy kid. This disease is something that could affect anybody and people need to know that it’s actually really simple to save lives by donating bone marrow,” says Odiney Brown, Shannon’s mother.

Finding a donor for Shannon is going to be even harder than for most patients because she comes from a mixed-race background—her mother is African-American and her father is Dominican.

The closer the donor’s genetic makeup is to the patient, the more successful the match is and there is a significant shortage of donors who aren’t Caucasian, says Katharina Harf, executive vice president of New York-based DKMS Americas.

For instance, only 8% of the seven million nationally registered donors are African-American so less than a fifth of African-Americans in need of a transplant will actually receive one, says Ms. Harf, who helped start DKMS Americas four years ago after her own mother died from leukemia.

“Overall, six out of 10 patients will never receive a transplant because they will not find a match,” Ms. Harf says.

“I’ve made it my life’s mission to recruit donors so patients and families don’t have to go through the pain we had to go through.”

Shannon, who’s from Bellerose, Queens, now lives at Schneider Children’s Hospital on Long Island, where she just finished her second dose of chemotherapy treatments.

“The Lion King” was the first show Shannon performed in and her mother says it was difficult for her to leave her acting gig.

“She missed her fifth-grade graduation and had to withdraw from ‘The Lion King,'” says Ms. Brown. She says her daughter, who wants to be an actor and a pediatrician when she is older, is doing well emotionally but that her blood count is too low to leave the hospital.

“She’s hurting, but she’s strong and resilient,” Ms. Brown says.

{Via NY HEARD & SCENE}