The Lion King–Broadway Rocks

The award winning Broadway musical has taken the Capital Region by storm, and for good reason.

Last night I had the pleasure to see one of Broadways longest most successful running shows, Disney's The Lion King. Now I am a bit a theater dork as it is, but this was one of the best musicals I have seen.  For years I wanted to travel to Broadway and see in in the City, but never got around to it but when I heard it was coming to Proctors my girlfriend and I jumped at the chance to get tickets.  We called the box office the morning they went on sale to get the seats we wanted.  Finally after months of waiting for the night to arrive, it came last night and blew me away.

From the minute the curtain went up I was back to being a 10 year old kid watching one of my favorite Disney movies.  Everything about the production was breathtaking.  As it opens with the Circle of Life (I hope we are all familiar with that) and the stage is over taken with actors and dancers dressed as all kinds of animals from the African Savannah it's really a site that you need to see.  The stage wasn't the only place the performers were either, at points they were in the crowd too swirling giant birds around as if we were transported into the jungle, it was awesome.

The story was exactly how  I remembered it from beginning to end.  Now they did add some things in to make it more of a musical, but the story remained unchanged.  For those of you guys out there who are too afraid to go to the theater because it's "girly" just know that productions like these are just as bad ass as your favorite rock show.  I would be a liar if I said I didn't get a little misty eyed when Mufasa died.  I also got goosebumps at the end as Simba climbed pride rock to re take the thrown from his evil Uncle Scar.  Scar, by the way, is hands down the best Disney villain ever.  No one pushes by buttons like that jerk.

It is no surprise to me that almost every showing of the The Lion King has been pretty much sold out.  This is one show I am happy I went to.  Underneath the animals, the singing and the dancing it is a great celebration of how to live your life. Ha Kuna Matata, what a wonderful phrase.