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THE PROGRAM

LEBO M (Additional Music & Lyrics, Additional Vocal Score, Vocal Arrangements, Choral Director) is known as the "voice and spirit of The Lion King." Once a teenage singer in Soweto, the Grammy Award winner and Tony nominee's music brings audiences to tears with hauntingly inspiring African rhythms and melodies. Lebo's talents have been hailed by the worldwide press in superlatives that might describe the most delightfully poetic of musical deities. Since his arrival in America, Lebo has attracted music industry giants such as Quincy Jones, Jimmy Cliff, and Hans Zimmer as mentors, allies, and collaborators. Lebo hs performed and produced three albums, Rhythm of the Pride Lands (Disney), Deeper Meaning (Gallo), and Lion King Stageplay (Japanese stageplay). Other credits include: The Power of One, Back on the Block, and Listen Up with Quincy Jones; the feature films Outbreak (Warner Bros.), Congo (Warner Bros.), Born to Be Wild (Paramount); and the Disney television special People. He has performed on the Academy Awards, the Essence Awards Show, and along with Vanessa Redgrave at Kthimi -- the Return in Kosovo, and has been honored by Artists for a Free South Africa.

MARK MANCINA (Additional Music & Lyrics, Music Produced for the Stage, Additional Score), a multi-platinum Tony nominee and Grammy Award-winning composer, was an obvious choice to compose, produce, and adapt additional music for The Lion King stage production as he arranged and produced songs for the blockbuster animated feature film, for which he received both the Grammy and American Music Award 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 Speed, Twister, and Bad Boys; the period epic Moll Flanders, which was on Billboard's Classical Crossover Chart; and the summer 1997 hit action thriller Con Air, among others. He is recording an album of original material and also plans to embark on a tour featuring musical highlights from his film scores.

HANS ZIMMER (Additional Music & Lyrics) received an Oscar, Golden Globe, and two Grammy awards for his film score of The Lion King. His long line of more than 60 film and T.V. scores goes back to 1982's Moonlighting, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, and includes the Oscar-nominated scores for The Preacher's Wife and Rain Man, as well as the Grammy Award-winning Crimson Tide, Black Rain, Thelma and Louise, Driving Miss Daisy, Backdraft, Green Card, Beyond Rangoon, and Broken Arrow. In addition to his composing duties, he has assumed the responsibilities of heading DreamWorks' entire film music division and scored its first film, The Peacemaker, starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman.

JAY RIFKIN (Additional Music & Lyrics). The Grammy Award-winning producer, together with producing/composing partner Hans Zimmer, created Media Ventures, a multi-faceted entertainment group that includes music, new media, film, and television. Their partnership has earned them numerous awards and nominations including Academy Award nominations, for the film scores of Driving Miss Daisy, Rain Man, and The Lion King. Following the success of The Lion King, Jay conceived and produced the gold-selling follow-up album Rhythm of the Pride Lands. Jay is also chairman of Media Revolution, an award-winning new media company and founder and president of Mojo Records, an alternative music label formed in 1995.

RICHARD HUDSON (Scenic Design) was born in Zimbabwe, and educated in Zimbabwe and England. He has designed sets and custumes for opera and theater all over the world, including the Royal National Theatre, t he Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera House-Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and English National Opera (U.K.), Bavarian State Opera (Munich), La Fenice (Venice), and Staatsoper (Vienna). In America he has designed La Béte (Broadway), Twelfth Night (Goodman Theatre), The Rake's Progress (Lyric Opera of Chicago), and Samson et Dalila (Metropolitan Opera, New York). He has won many awards, including a Tony for his work on The Lion King. He is the British Scenography Commissioner to OISTAT, and he was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI).

DONALD HOLDER (Lighting Design) received the 1998 Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards for his work on The Lion King and a 1999 Olivier nomination for The Lion King London. He recently designed Gloria Estefan's Mellennium Tour. Broadway: Juan Darién (Tony and Drama Desk nominations), The Green Bird, Holiday, Hughie, Voices in the Dark, Eastern Standard, Solitary Confinement. Off-Broadway: Three DAys of Rain, Sight Unseen, The Most Fabulous Sotry Ever Told, Jeffery, Spunk, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Drama Desk nomination), Richard II/III, The Changeling, The Green Bird, Raised in Captivity, Strike up the Band (City Center Encores!), All My Sons, and many others.

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Opera: Salome (Kirov Opera, St. Petersburg, Russia). He has designed at resident theaters across the United States. Mr. Holder is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

MICHAEL CURRY (Mask & Puppet Co-Designer) has collaborated with Julie Taymor on many stage and opera shows. On Broadway, he has worked on numerous productions including Crazy for You and Kiss of the Spider Woman. He has been awarded the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Puppet Design for The Lion King, several Emmys, and the 1999 Eddy Award for Outstanding Contribution in the Technical and Design Field. Michael is one of the country's leading production design consultants and works widely in both conceptual and technical development for some of the world's foremost entertainment companies. He owns and operates Michael Curry Design Inc. in St. Helens, Oregon, which produces large, live-performance oriented production designs, such as those seen at the 1996 Olympic opening ceremonies, Superbowl 2000, and New York City's Times Square 2000 Millennium event.

TONY MEOLA (Sound Design) won the 1998 Dram Desk Award for the Broadway premiere of The Lion King. Other Broadway shows: Kiss Me Kate, Footloose, High Society, The Sound of Music, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Juan Darién, Steel Pier, Forum, The King & I, Company, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Moon over Buffalo, Smokey Joe's Cafe, Guys and Dolls, Five Guys Named Moe, She Loves Me, Whorehouse Goes Public, The Red Shoes, Anything Goes. West End: The Lion King, Smokey Joe's Cafe, Anything Goes. Vienna: Mozart! Berlin: Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. Off-Broadway includes A New Brain, Eliot Ness in Cleveland, Violet, and at Goodspeed Opera House, Romeo & Juliet, Just So, and Butterfly. Tony wishes to thank the extraordinary crew at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

MICHAEL WARD (Hair & Makeup Design) designs for Opera and Theater. For Disney: The Lion King (Broadway and others) and Der Glockner von Notre Dame (Berlin). Other work has been seen in Britain, United States, Holland, France, Japan, Israel, and Portugal. Future plans include Turandot (La Scala, Milan). He lives and gardens in London and the Loire Valley, France.

JAY BINDER (Casting) with Jack Bowdan, Mark Brandon, and Laura Stanczyk. Broadway: Wrong Mountain, Music Man, Finian's Rainbow, Aida, The Iceman Cometh, Charlie Brown, High Society, Golden Child, Sound of Music, Triumph of Love, Proposals, Ballyhoo, Chicago, Once upon a Mattress, The King & I, Damn Yankees, Beauty and the Beast, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Lost in Yonkers, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Jake's Women, Goodbye Girl, Rumors. Seven-time Artios Award winner. Member-C.S.A.

DAVID BENKEN (Technical Director) has more than 20 years of experience on Broadway and with touring Broadway productions. Broadway credits include Peter Pan and The Wild Party. National tours: Miss Saigon, Beauty and the Beast, Martin Guerre, Peter Pan, Les Misérables, Carousel, 42nd Street. Other shows include Evita (South America) and West Side Story (Vienna). Special thanks and love to his wife Rose Palombo. He would also like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Stephen Detmer and Richard Howard.

ELIZABETH BURGESS (Production Stage Manager) has worked all over the world with Peter Sellars, Julie Taymor, Jessye Norman, Bill T. Jones, and Robert Woodruff. Regional credits: Lincoln Center, Theatre for a New Audience, American Repertory Theatre, Trinity Repertory, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Seattle Opera.

JEFF LEE (Associate Director/Production Supervisor). As Associate Director: The Lion King (London and Toronto), Shirley Valentine, Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Song of Singapore, Love Julie, Mortal Kombat; As Production Stage Manager/Supervisor-Broadway and touring: A Chorus Line, Cats, Ain't Misbehavin', Pirates of Penzance, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Merlin, Juan Darién, Hapgood, The Little Foxes.

JOSEPH CHURCH (Music Supervisor/Director) credits as music director include Randy Newman's Faust in San Diego and Chicago, The Who's Tommy on Broadway (also music supervisor of all worldwide companies), Radio City's Christmas Spectacular and Little Shop of Horrors (national tour). His work as a composer includes incidental music for more than 30 plays and two off-Broadway musicals. He is currently collaborating with librettist Sheldon Harnick on an oratorio, Les FAbles. Mr. Church holds a doctorate from NYU, where he is co-director of the music theater program and teaches composition.

ROBERT ELHAI (Associate Music Producer, Orchestrator) His debut as a Broadway orchestrator follows many years of orchestrating theater and film scores for renowned composers Elliot Goldenthal (Juan Darién, Othello, Interview with the Vampire) and Michael Kamen (101 Dalmations, Don Juan DeMarco), among others. He holds a doctorate in composition from Yale University and currently resides in Minneapolis.