THE LION KING REACHES 5,000 PERFORMANCES!
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London Theatre Direct
London's West End production of The Lion King celebrated its 5000th performance on Tuesday night at the shows home The Lyceum Theatre.
The Disney screen-to-stage adaption has now been seen by almost 10 million people since it opened on 19 October 1999.
The production opened first in the US on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre in November 1997 and to help celebrate on Tuesday evening was the show's original creative team led by director and designer Julie Taymor.
Eighteen productions of The Lion King have been performed in 14 countries across five continents. It has been seen by more than 60 million people worldwide, grossing a staggering $4.3 billion!
Creating the masks and 232 puppets required in the show took 37,000 hours to create, that's equivalent to over 1,542 days. Annual maintenance of the 20 Grasslands headdresses used in the show requires over 3,000 stalks, or more than 27kg of grass.
The show features 14 songs including 5 from the film and some new songs written by Elton John and Tim Rice. Tim Rice was also there on Tuesday evening at the curtain call to help celebrate this excellent achievement with the cast.