This weekend I saw The Lion King on Broadway for the second time.  It is a right of passage in the Beeny house, upon your sixth birthday.  I was the lucky one escorting Matthew.

Is it possible that the most thrilling part of The Lion King could be the part that you and I and the rest of the audience never sees?

A family friend, and member of The Lion King staff, treated Matthew and me to a back stage tour after the show on Saturday.  I would be hard pressed to tell you which experience I found more thrilling: the show or the behind-the-scenes tour.  

The show is spectacular.  It is everything you would expect from a Disney movie turned musical - especially when directed by Julie Taymor and with music and lyrics by Sir Elton John.  The costumes are a feast for the eyes, the dance is inspiring, and within the first five minutes the entire audience is 100% enveloped in the experience as safari animals descend down the isles and onto the stage.  

But behind the scenes did you know...

Each actor is appointed a professional staff person whose only job is to help him transition in and out of costumes?  Costume changes are so well synchronized that each happens in less than a minute (including the giraffes who must get on ladders to enter their costumes!); Costumes, that will only ever be viewed from hundreds of feet away, and in dimmed lights, are handmade with intricate bead work?  Costume designers make weekly repairs to costumes; Everything back stage is perfectly organized and labeled with each performer's name?  Each cast member has a designated space for changing, which is the only way this cast of 80+ performers with hundreds of costume changes, and massive props could ever hope to get the job done in such cramped quarters?; and, Every prop has a designated place back stage, some of which is hanging from pulleys in the ceiling?

Behind the scenes of The Lion King is a spectacle!  

For every ounce of attention given to the show itself, there must be at least an equal amount of attention given to pulling this show off without a (visible) hitch... seven days a week.  It is easy to take for granted the right performer showing up on stage at the right time.  That is, until now.  Saturday I saw choreography of a whole other sort.  I saw committed staff weaving in and out of one another, making sure that props were in place and that performers were dressed.  Just like Pete, the recipient from Saturday's Yellow Envelope Project, these cast hands worked as if their life depended on it... all so someone else could shine. 

It got me thinking.  

How many of you are stage hands, working behind the scenes to make sure your principal performers look good and are on cue?  Visit us in the Community Forum labeled, Today's Post.  Give us a backstage tour of your life.  What are the mechanics involved in making your star performers shine?

Shining off until tomorrow...