Posts Tagged ‘Lion King Landmark Theater Tickets’
The Lion King Landmark Theater VA Review
Lion King is currently performing on tour at Landmark Theatre VA in Richmond, VA.
The Lion King is one of the most profitable, longest running Broadway musicals around. But if you want an experience that is its own theater entity, that takes inspiration from the movie and then runs with it to wild, unexpected places, you’re not going to consistently find it here. The first 10 minutes of Disney’s Broadway musical, “The Lion King,” are the stuff of theater transcendence.
A perfectly formed giraffe crosses the stage of the Landmark Theater, and you have to work backwards to realize it’s actually a human in costume. An elephant ambles down the aisle, and it is somehow rooted in the earth and simultaneously the stuff of pure, weird imagination.
But every time one of these moments happens and you feel like you’re watching the story of “The Lion King” in a completely new way, the next moment the musical grows timid and hurries back to an exact replica of the source material.
The musical, like the film, follows the arc of the young lion, Simba, whose wise, ruling father, Mufasa is killed by the nefarious Uncle Scar. Scar and his band of hyena followers take over the lands of Pride Rock. Simba is exiled to the jungle where he finds zany friends, Timon and Pumba, and ultimately the courage to return and fight. The rest is Disney history.
The biggest challenge of transitioning this story to stage is the fact that all of the characters are African animals. It could so easily be laughable. But this is where “The Lion King” musical is at its most inspired. Costume designer, Julie Taymor, along with her mask and puppet design partner, Michael Curry, will go down in Broadway legend for what they’ve done.
I’ve never seen a faster standing ovation than I did at the Landmark at the end of “The Lion King.” And it’s well deserved, because this musical is unlike anything you’ve probably ever seen. Its story is solid, because the film’s story is such a classic, well-constructed arc. Elton John and Tim Rice’s music and lyrics, including all of the film’s songs, are also solid and familiar. All of that makes for a very good musical.
Read the complete review {Via Richmond.com}
The Lion King runs through March 11 at the Landmark Theater. Buy Lion King Richmond VA Tickets Online, Use Code AFF$10 to Get $10 OFF on Orders over $350!
The Lion King Musical Preview – Premiering Feb. 15 at the Landmark Theater
The nation Tour of The Lion King premiering Feb. 15 at the Landmark Theater. Lion King will play at Landmark Theater through March 11, 2012 in Richmond, VA.
Lion King Musical Preview Video:
“I defy anyone to watch the opening scene and not get goose bumps,” said Michael Reilly, who has spent nine years with versions of “The Lion King” and is the puppet supervisor for the national tour. If anyone should be inured to the musical’s alchemy, it’s Reilly: As the guy in charge of maintenance on the show’s 230 or so puppets, he sculpts, paints, troubleshoots electric and mechanical systems, and more.
Zazu, a bird puppet, has gears so tiny that Reilly and his two assistants use miniature tools to work on the costume. The attributes of Scar, a lion character, involve microcircuitry. And no matter how complex and delicate, the masks and puppets are heavily used. “They’re like museum pieces that are being used as jackhammers,” Reilly said, speaking by phone from Minneapolis, where “The Lion King” was performing in mid-January.
The wear and tear is unavoidable because masks and puppets are pivotal to the aesthetics of the 1997 Broadway musical directed by theatrical innovator Julie Taymor.
“We sort of dabbled with a new approach to theater that allowed the characters to be done in a very magical way” without diminishing “the importance of the human actor,” said Michael Curry, who collaborated with Taymor on the show’s mask and puppet designs.
“The Lion King” also has been a milestone event for puppetry, said Vincent Anthony, executive director of the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. He points out that “The Lion King” proved to producers that live puppetry could be successful on a big scale, opening the doors for subsequent Broadway shows such as “Avenue Q” and “War Horse.”
Read the complete story {Via Richmond Times-Dispatch}
Lion King will play at Landmark Theater VA through March 11, 2012. Buy Lion King Richmond VA Tickets Online, Use Code AFF$10 to Get $10 OFF on Orders over $350!
