Festival of the Lion King Giraffe and Lion. The show in Hong Kong has been arranged to a simplified version of the story of "The Lion King" along with the songs in the movie. The performance is mainly in English, but two actors dressed as monkeys summarize and translate Rafiki's lines into Cantonese in order to accommodate guests who do not speak English. Simplified Chinese subtitles, for Mainland Chinese visitors, are also projected onto the screens above each seating section. The show is presented to Simba by Rafiki (portrayed by a female actress, as in the Broadway musical) as a re-telling of Simba's life. Simba
Simba film. Directed by Julie Taymor, with a book by Irene Mecchi and Roger Allers, "The Lion King "premiered at the New Amsterdam Theatre on November 13, 1997, where it ran for nine years until being moved to the Minskoff Theatre on June 13, 2006. The role of Simba was originated by Scott Irby-Ranniar and Jason Raize, with Irby-Ranniar portraying Young Simba and Raize portraying Adult Simba. Raize auditioned for the role of Adult Simba after hearing that Taymor was looking to cast an actor who was of "unidentifiable ethnicity." Raize revealed in an interview that there was a lot of