The Lion King - US Tour Creative Team

Mr. Allers has been instrumental in shaping the structure and dialogue of 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 and a new stage musical with Irene Mecchi. Elton John began his professional music career as a teenager performing as a pianist at the Northwood Hills Hotel. In 1962 he formed the band Bluesology, which by the mid-1960s backed touring American artists including the Isley Brothers, Major Lance and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. In 1967 he answered an advertisement in New Musical Express, leading to his songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin. The pair joined DJM Records as staff songwriters in 1968. John released his debut album, Empty Sky, in 1969. His self-titled album Elton John (1970) included the hit single “Your Song.” He followed with Tumbleweed Connection ... read more A Tony® nominee and multi-platinum, three-time Grammy Award®-winning composer, he was an obvious choice to produce the music for the stage production of The Lion King, having 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, ... read more Irene Mecci 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 co-author 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. Irene is developing an animated film at Pixar, a television adaptation of Broadway’s classic musical, Peter Pan and has a production company which is acquiring literary material written ... read more Sir Tim Rice is an author and Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Emmy Award, Tony Award, and Grammy Award-winning lyricist. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita; with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA, with whom he wrote Chess; for additional songs for the 2011 West End revival of The Wizard of Oz; and for his work with Alan Menken on Disney's Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and the musical King David. He also worked with Elton John on Disney's ... read more Jay Rifkin is an American record and film producer. Rifkin co-founded the company Media Ventures with Hans Zimmer, a childhood friend. As CEO of the company from 1988, Rifkin partnered with Zimmer to produce and to compose. Media Ventures is a diverse entertainment group that includes music, new media, film and television. The partnership earned them numerous awards and nominations, including Academy Award nominations, for the film scores of Driving Miss Daisy, Rain Man and The Lion King. After the success of The Lion King, Rifkin conceived and produced the platinum-selling follow-up album Rhythm of the Pride Lands. Rifkin was also chairman ... read more Jonathan Roberts (born Jonathan Robert Stubenrauch; April 20, 1974) is an American professional ballroom dancer. He decided to take up dancing after he received a free trial at a local dance studio and enjoyed it. He currently resides in California. He competed in seasons 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 of the U.S. version of Dancing with the Stars. Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997, and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for Best Director and Costume Designer. Her film Frida, about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a Best Original Song nomination for Taymor's composition "Burn It Blue". She also directed the jukebox musical Across the Universe. Mr. Allers has been instrumental in shaping the structure and dialogue of 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 and a new stage musical with Irene Mecchi. Michael's approach is unique, as he chooses to design and fabricate with a long-term team in his Oregon studio. The scenic designs, puppetry and performance effects from Michael Curry Design have been the cornerstone of shows for the past 30 years. Michael is best known for his work with The Lion King on Broadway, the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, Met Opera, Cirque du Soleil and other worldwide spectacles. Tony® and Drama Desk nominee Robert Elhai has orchestrated many concert, theatre and film scores for composers Elliot Goldenthal (Juan Darien, Final Fantasy) and Michael Kamen (Don Juan de Marco, X-Men), among others. His arrangements for Metallica's GRAMMY® Award-winning "S&M" made good use of his doctorate in composition from Yale University. Garth Fagan is the recipient of the 1998 Tony® Award for Best Choreography and the 2000 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre 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 ... read more Bruce Fowler is an accomplished trombonist who has played with such notables as Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Frank Zappa, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Don Van Vliet. He performs with his family's band, The Fowler Brothers (there are five Fowlers); his own band, The Enormous Bones; and Banned from Utopia. Bruce was the supervising orchestrator for Pearl Harbor (he also composed the big band numbers), Shrek, As Good as It Gets, Black Hawk Down and Hans Zimmer's Academy Award®-winning The Lion King movie score. Donald Holder has worked extensively in Theatre, Opera, Dance, Architectural and Television lighting in the US and abroad for over 30 years. He has designed 58 Broadway productions and has been nominated for 13 Tony Awards, winning the Tony for Best Lighting Design for The Lion King in 1998, and for the 2008 revival of South Pacific. Recent Broadway productions include: Tootsie, Kiss Me Kate, Anastasia, Oslo, Straight White Men, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I, On the Twentieth Century, The Bridges of Madison County, Bullets Over Broadway and many others. Projects at the NY ... read more Richard Hudson was born in Zimbabwe and educated in Zimbabwe and England. In 1988 he won a Laurence Olivier Award for designing a season of seven plays at the Old Vic Theatre, London. His set designs for The Lion King have won numerous awards, including a Tony® in 1998. He is a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI). In 2003 he won the Gold Medal for Set Design at the Prague Quadriennale, and in 2005 he was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Surrey. He has designed sets and costumes for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, the ... read more Elton John began his professional music career as a teenager performing as a pianist at the Northwood Hills Hotel. In 1962 he formed the band Bluesology, which by the mid-1960s backed touring American artists including the Isley Brothers, Major Lance and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. In 1967 he answered an advertisement in New Musical Express, leading to his songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin. The pair joined DJM Records as staff songwriters in 1968. John released his debut album, Empty Sky, in 1969. His self-titled album Elton John (1970) included the hit single “Your Song.” He followed with Tumbleweed Connection ... read more Kennedy's Broadway sound design credits include On Your Feet, Doctor Zhivago, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Tony Award), Hands on a Hardbody (Drama Desk Award), Jesus Christ Superstar, Catch Me If You Can (Tony nomination), Guys and Dolls, Mary Poppins, The Lion King, Jersey Boys (Drama Desk Award), Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays, Rent, Hairspray, The Producers, Aida, Titanic, Big, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Carousel, and The Who’s Tommy (Drama Desk Award). In addition, he was the production engineer on such Broadway shows as Cats, Starlight Express, Song & Dance, The Phantom of the Opera, Carrie, ... read more A Tony® nominee and multi-platinum, three-time Grammy Award®-winning composer, he was an obvious choice to produce the music for the stage production of The Lion King, having 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, ... read more Irene Mecci 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 co-author 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. Irene is developing an animated film at Pixar, a television adaptation of Broadway’s classic musical, Peter Pan and has a production company which is acquiring literary material written ... read more David Metzger has orchestrated many films, including the Disney animated film Tarzan, Training Day, Domestic Disturbance, Bait and Return to Paradise. His television work includes composing episodes of "The Magnificent Seven" and Disney's "The Legend of Tarzan" and five years as an arranger/composer for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." David was nominated for Tony® and Drama Desk awards for The Lion King. Sir Tim Rice is an author and Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Emmy Award, Tony Award, and Grammy Award-winning lyricist. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita; with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA, with whom he wrote Chess; for additional songs for the 2011 West End revival of The Wizard of Oz; and for his work with Alan Menken on Disney's Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and the musical King David. He also worked with Elton John on Disney's ... read more Jay Rifkin is an American record and film producer. Rifkin co-founded the company Media Ventures with Hans Zimmer, a childhood friend. As CEO of the company from 1988, Rifkin partnered with Zimmer to produce and to compose. Media Ventures is a diverse entertainment group that includes music, new media, film and television. The partnership earned them numerous awards and nominations, including Academy Award nominations, for the film scores of Driving Miss Daisy, Rain Man and The Lion King. After the success of The Lion King, Rifkin conceived and produced the platinum-selling follow-up album Rhythm of the Pride Lands. Rifkin was also chairman ... read more Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997, and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for Best Director and Costume Designer. Her film Frida, about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a Best Original Song nomination for Taymor's composition "Burn It Blue". She also directed the jukebox musical Across the Universe. Michael Ward 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, the United States, Holland, France, Japan, Israel and Portugal. Along with his design work in theatre, he works as a garden and landscape designer.