25 years since “The Lion King” opened on Broadway, the show has traveled all over the

one thing that often doesn’t translate between countries: the jokes

true of the comic relief characters that are meerkat Timon and warthog Pumbaa

Belt humor, and how we cast it in New York — you have to find the

were in Shanghai, for the hyenas and for Timon and Pumbaa, we had to find

“In Tokyo, I remember the comedians for the rough and tumble parts, they were from

the new episode of Stagecraft, Variety‘s theater podcast, Taymor also explained how other elements

out a production in South Africa in which Timon was played by a Black South

part of the story, because they were best friends and they were outcasts,” Taymor said

they lived in the jungle and had missed Apartheid