The Art of the Lion King

When I learned that The Lion King was coming to Brisbane, I was beyond excited. And then I found out that Brisbane was lucky enough to have an accompanying exhibition, The Art of the Lion King, where we could get a behind the scenes look at the making of The Lion King.

It was recommended that we go see the exhibition before seeing the actual show so I scheduled it into our jam-packed day at South Bank, after the Instameet. The exhibition itself was a lot smaller than I expected (and hoped) for it to be, but it still immerses you into the world of this beautiful stage production.

The boys and I walked through, stopping to read the panels, and pausing to admire the costume sketches and set designs. There were a few original costumes on display and they were absolutely gorgeous to see up close.


For me, the best part of the exhibition was the documentaries. The boys sat quietly and watched but eventually, Caleb climbed into my lap and fell asleep. Nathan and I enjoyed the rest of the documentaries in that air conditioned room after a long morning of walking.

The first was Pride of The Lion King and it showed how the original animated film came together. We heard from the animators, voice actors and the composers and musicians behind the beautiful soundtrack.

The second documentary was Behind the Scenes, a half-hour look at how they took that Disney movie and turned it into the gorgeous theatre production that it is. Seeing the amount of work that went into developing the musical, creating the costumes and building the sets just blew me away. All these creative geniuses just poured their hearts into their work.

This exhibit was so inspiring because we got to see the process - how this amazing thing came together, bit by bit, piece by piece, with some creative genius and a lot of hard work. That was the most exciting part.

So despite not being inspired at the Instameet, I sure hope the boys, especially Nathan, got a little bit out of the documentaries and it broadens his dreams for his own future career.