OnStage: 'The Lion King' still reigns

Ten years after it premiered in Minneapolis, "The Lion King" has become an international juggernaut, with productions in nine countries, including current ones in Japan, France and South Africa. The stage adaptation of the 1994 animated film has won scores of awards, has been seen by more than 43 million people and has grossed $3 billion to date.

While members of the show's creative and technical team were confident that they had something special while working on the show in Minneapolis, the celebrated end result had its share of backstage concerns.

Even before director Julie Taymor, with her hundreds-strong cast and crew, arrived in 1997 to build the show at the Orpheum Theatre, where it returns this week for an unprecedented third engagement, the theater staff had apprehensions about what might happen to their beloved Orpheum.

The 2,600-seat theater had undergone a $10 million renovation and restoration three years earlier. That refurbishment included a maple stage enlarged by 20 feet to accommodate Broadway shows.

And what was the first thing Taymor and company wanted to do? Cut a hole in the stage for an elevator capable of handling Pride Rock, one of the signature elements in the production.

"When I got a phone call that they wanted to cut a hole in the stage floor, 35 feet deep and 55 feet wide, I had to verify who was calling," said Dave Marietta, operations coordinator and technical director at the Orpheum. "That cut is as big as the stage was before the renovation. But we knew that [producer] Disney had the wherewithal to pull it off, and to bring the theater back to its original condition. With a show like this, you've got to be nimble."

Other surprises popped up during the staging of the high-stakes musical.

Gallbladder surgery

Taymor, the brilliant and visionary director who would go on to win Tony awards for directing and costume design, fell ill not long after flying into town. She went to the doctor complaining of abdominal pain and was admitted to the hospital, where she had emergency surgery to remove her gallbladder.

"She directed the show from her Barcalounger," said David Benken, technical director of "Lion King," who is now overseeing the Broadway production of "The Little Mermaid."I don't know what happened to that chair -- I'm sure she took it to New York -- but it should be in the Smithsonian or something."

Tom Hoch, president of the Hennepin Theatre Trust, which presents Minneapolis' Broadway season, was only a year into his job in 1997 when "Lion King" came. He remembers the theater as a scene of delirium, exhilaration and creative chaos.

"I came over, Julie was in her Barcalounger and there were probably 50 computers set up in the theater," he said. "You could hear the patter of computer keyboards, of things clattering in every direction, and in all of it, Julie was this island of peace and focus."

'Every square inch'

Nooks and crannies throughout the Orpheum were commandeered as work spaces, Marietta remembered.

"Every square inch of the theater was full with people sewing or working on scenery or puppets," he said. "Even the bathrooms became work stations."Lion King" came at a time when the big spectacles dominated Broadway, including "Miss Saigon," with its landing helicopter, and "The Phantom of the Opera," with its crashing chandelier.

"Lion King" had its share of complicated staging as well. The creative team had to figure out a safe and graceful way to get the elephants, controlled by multiple actors, from the back of the house in the animal procession that opens the show.

The giraffes, played by actors on stilts, kept falling over. The show pioneered a new type of fog -- "one that left no residue that would be a hazard to the performers on stilts," said Benken.

Perhaps the biggest engineering feat was Pride Rock, which rises 18 feet onstage. "It's both a turntable and an elevator, two different technologies coming together," said Benken. "You don't want people being aware of the machinery behind what they are seeing, just the magic."

For the two companies on tour in the United States, with their much shorter runs, this element of the show has an alternative staging that leaves the stage of road houses intact.

A dreamed-about moment

That 1997 production took over the Orpheum for 20 weeks, including an eight-week run that pleased theatergoers and the Disney big shots who jetted in to see it. It had a payroll of more than $1 million for all the crafts people, artisans and performers, Hoch said, and a direct economic impact of $11 million in Minneapolis.

"Everybody was working 60-, 70-, 80- and 100-hour weeks," said Marietta.

In the end, the result was more than gratifying.

"I remember, at the end of that first performance with an audience, I was sitting at my desk at the back of the [theater], and people who didn't know me walked up and shook my hand," said Benken. "It was the moment that you dream about."

For Hoch, still getting his ears wet, there was an expectation that he would have many more shows like "Lion King."I remember thinking, after it was over, that we should have one of these every year," he said. "Little did I know how rare it would be."

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390

Rohan Preston • rpreston@startribune.com