WANT TO GO?
What: Disney's "The Lion King," presented by the Victoria Theatre Association and the Premier Health Broadway Series.
When: Tuesday, June 7 to Sunday, July 3. Performances will be at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; at 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sundays, with the exception of Sunday, July 3 when there will be a 1 p.m. show only. There is a 1 p.m. matinee on Thursday, June 30.
Where: Benjamin and Marian Schuster Center, 1 W. Second St., Dayton
Tickets: Tickets range from $25-$157 depending upon the day and performance and are available at the Ticket Center Stage Box Office, by calling Ticket Center Stage from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, from noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays until Memorial Day and two hours prior to performances, at (937) 228-3630, toll-free at 888-228-3630 or at www.ticketcenterstage.com. Premium Ticket Packages — which include prime seat locations, a commemorative souvenir program and an exclusive merchandise item — are also available.
Group tickets: Orders for groups of 20 or more may be placed by calling Betty Gould at (937) 228-7591 ext. 3074.
You may be a terrific singer, dancer and actor and still not make it as a standby. Just ask Tony Freeman.
“You may arrive at the theater just before the show and find out that you’re on!” says Freeman, who comes to town with “Disney’s The Lion King” soon. The Cincinnati native and Miami University graduate says special skills are required to roll with the kind of punches that standby work requires.
The popular Broadway show, last here in 2011, returns to the Schuster Center from Tuesday, June 7 through Sunday, July 3. Since its Broadway premiere in 1997, 22 global productions have been seen by more than 85 million people. The musical has been translated into eight languages.
The inspirational story, based on the 1994 animated Disney film, centers around a young lion named Simba who is in line to become the next king. When his Uncle Scar murders Simba’s father — Mufasa — the young lion is made to think he was responsible for his father’s death and flees. Eventually, he returns to confront Scar and end his tyranny.
The Broadway musical, winner of six Tony awards including Best Musical, was costumed and directed by the multi-talented Julie Taymor. The score, a blend of Western popular music and the sounds and rhythms of Africa, features music by Elton John and Tim Rice.
At any given performance, you may see Freeman in the role of the meerkat Pumbaa, the lion Scar, the warthog Timon or the zany bird Zazu. “How many people get to play four different leading roles in the same Broadway show?” asks Freeman who has been associated with the famous production for 11 of the past 16 years — both on Broadway and in the national and international touring casts.
The challenge is that a standby must learn all of the parts but may go for months without playing them, he said.
Joining “The Lion King”
Freeman, who lives two blocks from Times Square in New York , got his start in “The Lion King” on Broadway in the year 2000 when he auditioned for director Julie Taymor and was cast as Zazu. He played the role for three years on and off, and then also played Zazu on tour beginning in 2007. He did more than 3,000 performances as Zazu before becoming the standby for four characters.
“It’s a story that touches everyone’s life because it’s about about birth and loss,” Freeman said.
The musical is both a beautiful way to introduce children to loss and a touching way for older people who have already experienced loss to feel connected to their loved ones, he said.
“The show has hit me differently at different places in my own life,” Freeman said. “After my father passed away, the show was a totally different experience than it was before. It’s all about the loss of a loved one and how they are still there for you as long as you think about them, and keep them in your heart and your spirit. They are still a presence in your life.
“In the show, it says that everyone we’ve ever loved is still in the stars and looking down on us. All we have to do is look up to know that they are there for us… it’s a beautiful thing.”
The challenges of being a standby
When the Disney production first asked Freeman to become a standby, he wasn’t so sure.
“When I first made the switch to being a standby it was kinda scary,” he admits now. “Some people are better suited to it than others but now I love it. The parts are all very different and the puppetry is very different, but I enjoy it all.”
Standbys, he explained, always have to be on hand. Sometimes he’ll know in advance that an actor will be on vacation and that he’ll be filling in, but he says it’s also possible that a cast member might become ill in the middle of a show. “Or maybe a cast member’s flight is delayed or they have a wreck on their way to the theater,” Freeman adds.
Life on the road has its advantages. “We’re lucky because with ‘The Lion King,’ we come to a town for a month and really get to know the towns,” he explained. “Some of us live in hotels, others get together and rent a house or apartment.”
At the moment, Freeman is looking forward to coming home. “I still have family in Cincinnati. I want to go back to Oxford…. have Skyline chili, Graeters Ice Cream and see a Reds game,” he said.
More about Tony Freeman
At age 57, Freeman is the oldest performer in this touring production of “The Lion King.” After graduating as valedictorian from Milford High School in Cincinnati, he headed for Miami University.
Though he had originally intended to focus on a pre-law major at Miami, Freeman auditioned for — and won — a scholarship from Cincinnati Music Theatre that required him to be a theater major. So he changed his major for freshman year. At the end of that first year, faculty members encouraged him to apply for another scholarship and he settled on a major in theater.
“I couldn’t sing very well at Miami, and they tried to find a role that didn’t require singing,” Freeman recalled. “I played Colonel Pickering in ‘My Fair Lady’ and I was in ‘Brigadoon,’ but it wasn’t until grad school at the University of North Carolina that I started taking singing lessons.”
Learning how to sing, he says now, transformed his career. Over the years, Freeman has appeared more than 250 plays and films. Of special note, he said, was the opportunity to be in Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize winning musical, “Caroline, or Change” in Los Angeles and San Francisco with the original Broadway cast.
Freeman has guested on both “Law and Order” and “Law and Order, SVU” and won a Barrymore Award for his performance in the Arden Theatre’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” He’s taught at Cornell University and New York’s famous Roundabout Theatre Company and has done workshops with both Barry Manilow and Neil Simon on shows each is developing.
A family musical
Freeman says “The Lion King” is the only show he can think of where he’s seen toddlers on the edge of their seats. His favorite scene comes toward the end of the musical when Simba’s father appears to him from heaven.
“The way way Julie Taymore staged it, it’s a blend of light, costumes and puppetry all coming together,” he explains, Taymore continues to be involved with “Lion King” productions and was present at Freeman’s audition in 2000. “It was pretty intimidating because she was a multiple Tony award winner at the time,” he said.
Freeman said Taymore has a clear idea of what she wants. “It’s like she has a photograph in her mind of how she wants something to look and then helps you get there,” he said.
The show’s original choreographer, Garth Fagan had to come up with a style of dance that was a mixture of African dance and animal movements.” Freeman said any show that is performed eight times a week requires that performers take care of their bodies during the day whether that is through yoga, Pilates, stretching.
The particular challenge in “The Lion King” is that audiences see both the actor and puppet because of the way the costumes and masks are designed. Typically with puppetry, you don’t see the puppeteer.
“We’re looking at the person we’re talking to, not at our puppets, so every expression our puppet makes has to be memorized by our body,” Freeman explains. “You have to practice in front of a mirror for hours and hours. You have to know what the expression is without looking at your own puppet.”
Even after 19 years, Freeman said, the show still gets a standing ovation every night.
“It’s the only show I’ve ever done where I see people wiping tears out of their eyes 30 seconds into the show,” he says. “It has a visceral response from everyone. I think it’s the combination of African languages, puppets and costumes that create an experience the audience has never seen before. “
Freeman said some shows allow the audience to sit and watch and zone out. "When those animals start pouring down the aisles in Lion King, you have to engage your imagination," he concludes. "It's like showing a child snow for the first time. It doesn't matter how many times you've seen snow; you see it through their eyes. It doesn't matter how much I've done the show, it's fun watching it through the audience's eyes. The audience gives us so much energy and excitement that it helps us get excited again ourselves!"
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