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    The Arthropologist

    What it's like to be inside The Lion King: Performer spills the secrets, frompuppets to stilts to that cheetah

    Nancy Wozny
    Jul 19, 2012 | 3:44 pm
    • Kendra Moore has been with The Lion King for nine years.
      Photo by John Ballard
    • Jelani Remy as Simba on the national tour
      Photo by Joan Marcus/© Disney
    • J. Anthony Crane as Scar
      Photo by Joan Marcus/© Disney
    • Buyi Zama as Rafiki in the opening number, "The Circle of Life."
      Photo by Joan Marcus/© Disney
    • J. Anthony Crane as Scar and Dionne Randolph as Mufasa face off in The LionKing.
      Photo by Joan Marcus/© Disney

    How many ballet dancers can say they have performed as a herd of gazelles?

    Kendra Moore, co-dance captain for The Lion King, can. Julie Taymor's iconic musical running is through Aug. 12 at the Hobby Center as part of Gexa Energy Broadway, and over the nine years she's been with the show, Moore has also been a lioness and a cheetah (the latter is her personal favorite) in its various spots.

    In addition to making sure that every single second of Garth Fagan's Tony Award-winning choreography stays intact, she's also a swing, meaning she can step in at a moment's notice to perform an ensemble part.

    "I even cover some of the men's parts," Moore boasted.

    "Do you get to be on stilts?" I asked the former Ballet Austin dancer. "I don't do the stilts, but I have tried them, and they are pretty fun. If only the show had a baby giraffe," she mused. Moore has danced with huge masks on her head while inside a giant animal puppet, and that's impressive enough.

    OK, so I'm a little late to Simba's party. It's been nearly two decades since I put my sons on the school bus donning Simba backpacks.

    I was jazzed about finally seeing The Lion King, and it didn't disappoint. (That was me hollering for joy when the elephants tumbled down the aisles.) Visually, the piece is stunning, with one gorgeous stage picture after another.

    As for the dancing, Fagan's moves seamlessly blend with Taymor's abstract designs. Oh, and the cheetah is superb.

    OK, so I'm a little late to Simba's party. It's been nearly two decades since I put my sons on the school bus donning Simba backpacks. The boys were 6 and 4 when they saw the film. I loved the Shakespearean overtones and the father complex that plays out in the movie — it's Hamlet, but with animals. They loved other things, the music, the adventure and the mythic weight of the tale. I bought the CD, and we danced around the house to "The Circle of Life."

    How I missed seeing the Broadway show over all these years, especially being a huge fan of both Fagan and Taymor, had more to do with being gone during the summers and needing to see dance while in New York.

    Moore didn't wait so long. Her dance career was already in full swing when she popped into a local movie theater on her day off from Ballet Austin to see The Lion King. She, too, loved it, and several years later, while dancing with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, she caught the Broadway show.

    "Wow, what a way to move a cartoon movie into a theater," Moore recalls. "Yet, I never saw myself being in a Broadway show."

    But sure enough, the ballet dancer's life would have a change of course, when she and another Hubbard Street dancer auditioned and got the parts.

    Dancing Fagan's choreography is always a high point for her. "His style is Afro-Caribbean, it's so grounded and earthy," Moore said. "It's the perfect choreography to tell the story."

    "We are storytellers with Julie's puppetry. The puppet becomes part of you, connected to your whole body, it's so symbiotic and, well, beautiful," Moore says.

    When we spoke, Moore had just returned from Rochester (where Fagan is based with his renowned company, Garth Fagan Dance) for a choreographic tune-up. "People come and go in the show, so it's important that they actually get to work with Garth," she said. "In order to truly keep the vision and spirit intact, people need to hear directly from him."

    For Moore, the show has proved a huge stretch from her days as a ballet classicist. "We are storytellers with Julie's puppetry. The puppet becomes part of you, connected to your whole body, it's so symbiotic and, well, beautiful," she said. The show is not without its difficult moments, though. "We have to take a lion's head on and off while we are dancing. It can get tricky."

    There are other ways the entire experience has opened Moore's world. "As a dancer in smaller companies, I was used to being around 15 to 20 people, and mostly dancers. The Lion King travels with about 100 people," she said. "I'm surrounded by people with so many different talents.

    "Also, unlike other touring shows, we stay much longer, so we can unpack and get to know the city and its people."

    Moore has also had the privilege of being in Taymor's presence.

    "She comes to give us her words of wisdom," she says. "Everything that comes out of her mouth has meaning. She's a genius."

    Check out the dancing gazelles in The Lion King.

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    news/entertainment

    Movie Review

    Houston native Wes Anderson shows off comedic side in The Phoenician Scheme

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 6, 2025 | 4:00 pm
    Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme
    Photo courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features
    Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme.

    If you were to do a poll of the best comedy filmmakers of the 21st century, writer/director Wes Anderson is not the obvious choice to come out on top, but there’s an argument to be made for him. His quirky style doesn’t yield the guffaws that more broad comedies do, but the absurd situations he creates in his films are often more consistently funny than anything else.

    Anderson’s inimitable approach is once again on full display in The Phoenician Scheme. At its center is Zsa-Zsa Gorda (Benicio Del Toro), a much-hated businessman who’s looking to complete a number of big projects in the fictional country of Phoenicia. As he seems to be the target of multiple assassination attempts, he appoints his daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), as his heir to try to ensure his legacy.

    Both she and his new assistant, Bjorn (Michael Cera), accompany him around the country as he tries to enact a scheme to have others cover the bulk of the cost for the various projects. Those he attempts to convince include Phoenician Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed), brothers Leland (Tom Hanks) and Reagan (Bryan Cranston), fellow businessman Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), ship captain Marty (Jeffrey Wright), his Cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson), and Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch).

    Put in Andersonian terms, the film is a mix between the madcap antics from The Grand Budapest Hotel and the impenetrable storytelling of Asteroid City. If you were to try to understand every detail of what’s going on in the story of The Phoenician Scheme, it might take three or more viewings to do so. But the film is still highly entertaining because Anderson fills its frames with his typical visual delights, great wordplay, and his particular version of slapstick.

    Much of the comedy of the film derives from Anderson inserting moments that initially come as a surprise and then utilizing them as running jokes. The film features more blood than usual for the filmmaker, but each time a character gets wounded (or worse), it gets funnier. The assassination attempts get broader as the film goes along, and the matter-of-fact way in which they’re treated by Gorda and others is also hilarious.

    Of course, Anderson is the cinephile’s comedy director, so the film is also full of high-brow things like allusions to paintings, tributes to other filmmakers, and classical music. Each time Gorda has an attempt on his life, he briefly finds himself in a version of limbo, depicted in black-and-white by Anderson. The cast of characters Gorda finds there - including Bill Murray as God - could come straight out of a 1950s Ingmar Bergman movie.

    Del Toro has delivered some great performances over the years, but this one is near the top for him. This is his second Anderson film (following The French Dispatch) and he nails the deadpan method. Also great is Cera, who uses a ridiculous accent to make a big impression. Threapleton, the daughter of Kate Winslet, makes the most of her first big film role. The list of supporting actors is too deep to properly laud everyone, but they all fit in seamlessly.

    Opinions will differ, but for this critic’s money, Anderson is at his best when he fully leans into the comedy of his films. He does just that in The Phoenician Scheme, to the point that it doesn’t matter that the story is overly complex. The combination of his eye for visual detail, a witty script, and committed performances make it a success.

    ---

    The Phoenician Scheme is now playing in theaters.

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