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ELTON JOHN
- Music
 Elton's
music is also tremendously successful on Broadway.
He has written and collaborated on two Tony® Award
winning smash-hit musicals, The Lion King and Aida.
Opening in London in 2005 is the stage production
of Billy Elliot in which Elton has written the music
with Lee Hall. Elton and long time writing partner
Bernie Taupin have completed the score for Warner
Brothers Theatre Ventures' Broadway musical Vampire
Lestat. Elton received a Golden
Globe nomination for “The Heart of Every Girl” which he recorded
and co-wrote with Bernie for the soundtrack of Sony's Mona Lisa Smile
starring Julia Roberts. His latest album Peachtree Road
was released in November 2004. Sir Elton John's passion for life reaches
well beyond his talents in the music industry. His commitment to the
fight against AIDS led to the inception of the Elton John AIDS Foundation
(Los Angeles and London) which has dispersed a combined
total of grants surpassing $50 million to date making the Elton John
Aids Foundation one of the largest public non-profit organizations in
the AIDS arena. In 1998, John was knighted by the
Queen of England who honored him with the title Sir Elton John, CBE. |
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TIM RICE - Lyrics
 Tim
Rice was born in 1944. He began songwriting in 1965 in
which year the first song he wrote “That’s
My Story” (tune as well as words) was recorded by
a rock group called the Nightshift whose
career never recovered. That same year he met fellow budding songwriter
Andrew Lloyd Webber whose musical ambitions were in theatre rather than
rock or pop. They joined forces as one could knock out a decent tune,
the other had a way with words. He has written the words for more than
a dozen musicals. The music for the first four was written by Andrew
Lloyd Webber. The first, The Likes Of Us (1965- 6), was never performed,
but the other
three, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968), Jesus Christ
Superstar (1969-71) and Evita (1976-78) became, and indeed remain, hugely
successful all around the world, on both stage and screen. Feeling certain
that they could never top this lot, the pair went their separate ways
in the early eighties, whereupon ALW immediately topped that lot with
Cats.
Tim then wrote Blondel (1983), a mediaeval romp, with Stephen Oliver,
which ran for a year in London, but not for long anywhere else. This
was followed in 1986 by Chess, in collaboration with ABBA’s Bjorn
Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. Chess had a healthy run in the West End
but flopped on Broadway in 1988, the New York Times bloke being particularly
forceful in his disapproval. In 1989 he translated the famous French
musical Starmania (by Michel Berger and Luc Plamondon) into English which
merely resulted in a hit album – in France. In the nineties he
worked primarily with the Disney empire, contributing lyrics to the movies
Aladdin (music Alan Menken) and The Lion King, (music Elton John and
Hans Zimmer) and to the stage shows Beauty and the Beast (Alan Menken),
The Lion King and Aida (both Sir Elton). Between Disney commitments he
wrote the words for Cliff Richard’s theatrical extravaganza Heathcliff
(music John Farrar) which toured the UK in 1995-96. He is currently reworking
an operatic musical he has written with Alan Menken (King David), and
on new treatments, for both stage and screen, of Chess, the New York
Times bloke having been replaced. He also has a brand new idea which
may or may not see the light of day. He has won a variety of awards,
mainly for the wrong things, or for simply turning up. He lives in London,
Cornwall and on the motorway between the two, has three children, his
own cricket team and a knighthood. |
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ROGER ALLERS - Book
Roger makes his Broadway debut with this Tony®-nominated book, adapted
from the animated
feature, which he co-directed. Mr. Allers has been instrumental in shaping
the structure and
dialogue for many Disney animated features since 1988, including Aladdin,
Beauty and the
Beast, The Little Mermaid, Oliver and Company, Rescuers Down Under, Prince
and the Pauper and the computer-animated movie, Tron. Prior to working
with Disney, he created animation on children’s programs and features
for studios in Boston, Toronto, and Tokyo. He is currently developing
an animated feature for Sony studios and developing a new stage musical
with his writing partner Irene Mecchi. |
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IRENE MECCHI - Book
Irene began her association with Disney in March 1992, when she wrote
Recycle Rex, an animated short, which won the 1994 Environmental Media
Award. Irene is a co-writer of Disney’s animated features The Lion
King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules. Along with coauthor Roger
Allers, she received a 1998 Tony® nomination for writing the book
for The Lion King. Irene wrote the teleplay for Annie, which aired on
ABC (USA) in 1999. A native San Franciscan, Irene has written for print,
television and live-action film and created a stage
play drawn from the 60 years of newspaper columns by San Francisco’s
Pulitzer Prize-winning
writer, Herb Caen. |
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JULIE TAYMOR - Director, Costume
Design, Mask/Puppet Co-design, Additional Lyrics
 won
the 1998 Tony® Award for Best Direction of a
Musical and for Best Costumes for "THE LION KING." She
also won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and
Drama League awards for her direction, and myriad
awards for her original costume, mask, and puppet
designs. Ms. Taymor made her Broadway debut in 1996
with "Juan Darién" - Lincoln Center's Vivian
Beaumont Theater, nominated for five Tony awards.
Other theater work includes "Titus Andronicus," "The
Tempest," and "The Taming of the Shrew" - Theatre
for a New Audience; "Juan Darién" - Music?Theatre
Group; co?adapter and director of "The Transposed
Heads" - Lincoln Center and American Music Theatre
Festival and "Liberty's Taken" - Castle Hill Festival;
designer and choreographer of "The King Stag" - American
Repertory Theatre.
Opera direction: "The Magic Flute" - Maggio Musicale, Florence, "Oedipus
Rex" - Saito Kinen Festival, Japan, "Salome" - Kirov Opera, The Flying
Dutchman - Los Angeles Opera.
Film: Fool's Fire for American Playhouse. Her feature film "Titus," starring
Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, was released in 1999 and published
in an illustrated book by Newmarket Press. She will next direct "Frida
Khalo," starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina. Ms. Taymor's awards include
a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emmy for "Oedipus
Rex," Obie Awards for "Visual Magic" and for "Juan Darién," the
Brandeis Creative Arts Award, the Dorothy Chandler Performing Arts Award,
and the International Classical Music Award for Best Opera Production
- "Oedipus Rex". A revised and expanded edition of "Julie Taymor: Playing
with Fire," spanning more than 20 years of her work, is published by
Abrams. "THE LION KING: Pride Rock on Broadway" is published by Hyperion.
Her production of "The Green Bird" - New Victory Theater and La Jolla
Playhouse played on Broadway at the Cort Theater. |
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GARTH FAGAN - Choreographer
Garth is the recipient of the 1998 Tony® Award for Best Choreography
and the 2000 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theater Choreographer (London,
UK) as well as the Drama Desk
Award, the Astaire Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his work
with The Lion King. Mr. Fagan was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and for
more than 33 years has toured the world with
Garth Fagan Dance. On television the company has appeared on Great Performances,
The Tonight Show and the Academy Awards®. Mr. Fagan forged his own
dance language and technique, drawing from modern dance, Afro- Caribbean
and ballet, and has choreographed for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,
Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Jose Limon Company, the New York City Ballet’s
50th Anniversary, and others. In addition, he choreographed Joseph
Papp’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Duke Ellington street
opera, Queenie Pie at the
Kennedy Center. A Distinguished University Professor at SUNY Brockport,
he has received
numerous awards and fellowships, including the 2001 Samuel H. Scripps
American Dance Festival Award, a Bessie Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship
and a Fulbright 50th Anniversary
Distinguished Fellow. He has also been inducted into the American Academy
of Achievement. |
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LEBO M - Additional Music & Lyrics,
Additional Vocal Score, Vocal Arrangements, Choral Director
Lebo is known as the “voice and spirit of The Lion King.” Once
a teenage singer in Soweto, the
GRAMMY® Award-winner and Tony® nominee’s music brings audiences
to tears with hauntingly
inspiring African rhythms and melodies. Lebo’s talents have been
hailed by the worldwide press in superlatives that might describe the
most delightfully poetic of musical deities. Since his
arrival in America, Lebo has attracted music industry giants such as
Quincy Jones, Jimmy Cliff
and Hans Zimmer as mentors, allies and collaborators. Lebo has performed
on and produced four albums, Rhythm of the Pride Lands (Disney), Deeper
Meaning (Gallo) and The Lion King (Japanese, Hamburg cast recordings).
Other credits include The Power of One, Back on the Block and Listen
Up with Quincy Jones; the feature films Outbreak (Warner Bros.), Congo
(Warner Bros.) and Born to Be Wild (Paramount); the Disney television
special People; Long
Night’s Journey Into Day (Iris Films) which was nominated for an
Academy Award®, and Tears of the Sun with Bruce Willis for Sony Pictures
(collaboration with Hans Zimmer). He has performed on the Academy Awards® and
the Essence Awards Show, with Vanessa Redgrave at Kthimi-The Return in
Kosovo, and been honoured by Artists for a Free South Africa. |
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MARK MANCINA - Additional Music & Lyrics,
Music Produced for the Stage, Additional Score
A multi-platinum Tony® nominee and multi-platinum GRAMMY® Award-winning
composer, he was an obvious choice to compose, produce and adapt additional
music for The Lion King stage
production, as he arranged and produced songs for the blockbuster animated
feature film, for which he received both GRAMMY® and American Music
awards in 1994. The film also spawned the hit album Rhythm of the Pride
Lands, for which Mr. Mancina co-wrote, arranged and produced three tracks,
including “He Lives in You” and “Shadowland”,
which are featured in the stage production. Ranked among the upper echelons
of film composers, his credits include mega-hits Training Day, Speed,
Twister, Bad Boys and Tarzan, among many others; the period
epic Moll Flanders, which was on Billboard's Crossover Chart; and most
recently, Brother Bear and The Haunted Mansion. |
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HANS
ZIMMER - Additional Music & Lyrics
received an Oscar, Golden Globe, and two Grammy awards for his film score
of" The Lion King". His long line of over 60 film and TV scores goes
back to 1982's "Moonlighting", directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, and includes
the Oscar®-nominated scores for" The Preacher's Wife" and "Rain Man",
as well as the Grammy® Award-winning "Crimson Tide", "Black Rain", "Thelma
and Louise", "Driving Miss Daisy", "Backdraft", "Green Card", "Beyond
Rangoon", and" Broken Arrow". In addition to his composing duties, he
has assumed the responsibility of heading DreamWorks' entire film music
division and has scored their first film, "The Peacemaker", starring
George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. |
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JAY
RIFKIN - Additional Music & Lyrics
The Grammy®-Award winning producer, together with producing/composing
partner Hans Zimmer, created Media Ventures, a multi-faceted entertainment
group that includes music, new media, film, and television. Their partnership
has earned them numerous awards and nominations, including Academy Award® nominations
for the film scores of "Driving Miss Daisy", "Rain Man", and "THE LION
KING". Following the success of "THE LION KING", Jay conceived and produced
the gold-selling follow-up album, "Rhythm of the Pridelands". Jay is
also chairman of Media Revolution, an award-winning new media company,
and founder and president of Mojo Records, an alternative-music label
formed in 1995. |
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MAREY
GRIFFITH - Production Dance Supervisor
A native New Yorker, Miss Griffith toured worldwide with the acclaimed
Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater as a featured dancer/soloist for 8 years. She is most known
for her performances in the works of the late, world renowned choreographer
Ulysses Dove. Other guest appearances include Déjà vu Dance
Theatre, and the Spoleto festival in Italy. She worked as co-choreographer
on the star studded production of The Wizard of Oz in concert at
Avery Fisher Hall with Nathan Lane, Joel Grey, Jewel and Natalie Cole.
Miss Griffith has appeared in numerous commercials and voice-overs. Her
soap opera credits include As the World Turns and Another World. She has
also performed with Sight and Sound Theatre in Lancaster, PA. Miss Griffith
joined the creative team of The Lion King in August of 2000. She feels
privileged to work with Choreographer Garth Fagan. |
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RICHARD
HUDSON - Scenic Design
Richard was born in Zimbabwe in 1954 and educated in Zimbabwe and England.
He attended the Wimbledon School of Art. He is British Scenography Commissioner
to OISTAT (Organisation Internationale des Scenografes, Techniciens et
Architects de Théâtre) and a Royal Designer for
Industry (RDI). In 1988 Richard won a Laurence Olivier Award for the season
at the Old Vic. His set designs for The Lion King have won numerous awards
including a Tony® in 1998, The Critics Circle Design Award in 2000
(joint winner) and both the Ovations Award and the Hollywood NAACP Award
for Best Set Design in 2001. Richard won the Gold Medal (Set Design) at
the 2003 Prague Quadrennial for his designs for Tamerlano at the Teatro
alla Pergola, Florence and The Critics Circle Design Award (2000). He is
a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI).
Future projects include The Ring Cycle (ENO) and Les Vêpres Siciliennes
(Paris). |
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DONALD
HOLDER - Lighting Design
Donald received the 1998 Tony®, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle
awards for his work on The Lion King; a 1999 Olivier nomination for The
Lion King – London; and the L.A. Drama
Critics Circle, NAACP, and Ovation awards for The Lion King – Los
Angeles. Broadway: Movin’ Out (Tony® and Drama Desk nominations),
Thoroughly Modern Millie, Ma Rainey’s Black
Bottom, Juan Darien (Tony® and Drama Desk nominations), King Hedley
II, The Green Bird, Bells Are Ringing, Hughie, Voices in the Dark, Eastern
Standard, Little Shop of Horrors, and The Boy from Oz. Off-Broadway: Observe
the Sons of Ulster (Lucille Lortel Award), Man of No Importance, Jitney,
Tiny Alice, Saturday Night, Everett Beekin, Three Days of Rain, Chaucer
in Rome, Sight Unseen, Spunk, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Jeffrey,
Raised in Captivity, Pterodactyls and many others. He has designed at resident
theatres across the United States. Mr. Holder is a graduate of the Yale
School of Drama. |
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CLEMENT
ISHMAEL - Music Supervisor
Clement is a conductor, composer and arranger. He is a graduate of the
University of Toronto and Royal Conservatory of Music, where he specialised
in composition and conducting as well as singing with Joyce Britten. Conducting
credits include Abbey Players Opera Company, Ad Astra Chorus, Addison Jazz
Ensembles, West London Gospel Choir, and this year he will be conducting
a new opera at Sadler’s Wells. West End credits include: Five Guys
Named Moe, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Smokey Joe’s Café.
He has also directed and arranged the music for the shows Sweet Lorraine,
3 Ms Behaving, Up Against the Wall, The Amen Corner, The Grapevine, Centralia
and Soul Train. His classical compositions and arrangements have been performed
worldwide as well as being broadcast by BBC Television and Radio. Most
recently his Opera Grazyna was performed at the Royal Opera House's Linbury
Studio, and he has been commissioned to write a new opera for W11 Opera
Company, to be performed in September 2005. |
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STEVE
C. KENNEDY - Sound Design
Steve was the production engineer on such Broadway shows as Cats, Starlight
Express, Song and Dance, The Phantom of the Opera, Carrie and Aspects of
Love. His Broadway sound design credits include Hairspray, The Producers,
Aida, Titanic, Big, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Carousel
and The Who’s Tommy for which he received the Drama Desk Award and
the Canadian Dora Mayor Moore Award. Steve is married to actress Loni Ackerman
and has two sons, Jack and George. |
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ANTHONY
LYN - Associate Director
Born in Swansea, South Wales. Theatre in London includes: Anything Goes,
Oklahoma, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat, Les Misérables,
Damn Yankees!, Miss Saigon and Hey! Mr Producer. Has worked at almost every
major regional Theatre in the United Kingdom and for Jean Ann Ryan Productions
World Wide. Teaching: Actors Center (London), Royal Academy of Music, Duke
University (Recipient of the Hal Brody Fellowship). Anthony was
Resident Director of the London Production of The Lion King, then the Gazelle
National Tour before becoming Supervising Resident Director and now Associate
Director World Wide. Anthony was a founding member and past Chairman of
West End Cares. |
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MICHAEL
CURRY - Mask and Puppet Co-Designer
Michael Curry is one of the world’s leading production designers.
He works widely in both conceptual and technical development with the foremost
entertainment companies such as Cirque du Soleil, the Metropolitan Opera,
London’s Royal National Theatre, Disney Theatrical Productions, LA
Opera, and Universal Pictures. He collaborates regularly with directors
such as Robert Lepage, Nicholas Hytner, Julie Taymor and William Friedken.
Michael has been the recipient of many prestigious awards from his peers,
including several awards for his puppet and costume work on Broadway, Olympic
ceremonies, and his continuing innovations in
the fields of visual effects and puppetry design. He owns and operates
Michael Curry Design Inc, which designs and creates liveperformance oriented
dimensional characters and productions, such as those seen by world-wide
audiences in the 1996 and 2002 Olympics opening and closing ceremonies,
Superbowl 2000, and New York City’s epoch 2000 millennium event. |
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MICHAEL
WARD - Hair & Makeup Design
Michael designs for opera and theatre. For Disney: The Lion King (Broadway
and others) and
Der Glöckner Von Notre Dame (Berlin). Other work has been seen in
Britain, United States,
Holland, France, Japan, Israel, and Portugal. Along side his design work
in theatre he works
as a Garden and Landscape Designer. |
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DISNEY
THEATRICAL PRODUCTIONS
DISNEY THEATRICAL PRODUCTIONS, a unit of BUENA
VISTA THEATRICAL GROUP, was formed in 1994 and
operates under the direction of Thomas Schumacher.
The company’s inaugural production, Beauty & The
Beast, is currently the sixth longest-running show
in Broadway history. In May 1997, The Walt Disney
Company completed restoration of the historic New
Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street, reopening with
the world premiere concert of Alan Menken & Tim
Rice’s King David. Later that same year,
Disney opened The Lion King, which received six
1998 Tony Awards® including Best Musical, as
well as the 1998 GRAMMY® Award for Best Musical
Show Album. Now in its eighth sold-out year on
Broadway, The Lion King can also currently be seen
onstage in London, Amsterdam, Melbourne, Hamburg,
Tokyo, Nagoya and two touring companies throughout
the U.S. In June 1999, Disney premiered its first
new musical outside the United States when Der
Glöckner Von Notre Dame, an adaptation of
the Disney film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, opened
in Berlin. Elton John & Tim Rice’s Aida,
which opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre
in March 2000, ended its triumphant four-and-a-half
year run on Broadway in September 2004. Aida received
four 2000 Tony Awards® including Best Music/Lyrics
and the 2000 GRAMMY® Award for Best Musical
Show Album. Aida can also be seen in Kyoto, Japan
and upcoming in Seoul, South Korea. On The Record,
a new musical celebrating Disney’s catalogue
of beloved songs, launched a US national tour in
November 2004, visiting 24 cities over the following
11 months. Mary Poppins in partnership with Cameron
Mackintosh, is now playing at London's Prince Edward
Theatre. Projects currently in development include
Tarzan with the music of Phil Collins, and The
Little Mermaid. |
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