"It's funny - we're constantly redesigning the puppets for specific actors and to utilize their strengths, but the nuts and bolts of it really are the same," said Reilly, whose team is rounded out by a pair of assistants. That's a lot of hyena herding.Īs a testament to the original design, not much has changed since the adaptation of the 1994 animated film began its stampede at the Broadway box office. Having started in Toronto in 1999 and, with only about a year and a half off to work on the "Lord of the Rings" musical (which he called a "beautiful disaster"), he spent about 11 years on one tour and now a year and a half with another. Reilly has played the role of puppet master - or, if you must, puppet director, his actual title - for the wildly successful show for most of this century. (A mane, by the way, that is made from bits of Basswood and a white Mongolian mare's tail.) And being prepared, with each of the 230 beautifully designed pieces fully prepped for the stage, is the best way to make sure another staging of the blockbuster Disney musical is pulled off without as much as a misplaced hair in Simba's mane.
Though he's not rallying his hyena troops for a takeover of the throne (neither his teeth nor ambitions are bared) he is regularly herding an impressive army of puppets. It may come from the cruelest cat in the Pride Lands, but it's the sung advice of "The Lion King" villain Scar that Michael Reilly follows closest.
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