Alternative Africa

Top Menu

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact Us

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business
  • Environment
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Reports
    • Africa-Observers
      • Read Reports
      • Submit a story
  • MORE
    • Health
    • News Now
    • World
    • Technology
Sign in / Join

Login

Welcome! Login in to your account
Lost your password?

Lost Password

Back to login
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact Us

logo

Alternative Africa

  • Home
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business
  • Environment
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Reports
    • Africa-Observers
      • Read Reports
      • Submit a story
  • MORE
    • Health
    • News Now
    • World
    • Technology
  • UK to cut aid to Nigeria, other African countries by more than 50%

  • All you need to know about the side effects of COVID-19 vaccine

  • Ghanaian footballer faces life jail over death of policeman

  • Ghana receives additional 50k doses of covid-19 vaccines from India

  • Confidence in covid-19 vaccines grows as medical doctor gets first jab in Nigeria

News Now
Home›News Now›The ‘Lion King’ Effect: How a Broadway Smash Changed South African Lives

The ‘Lion King’ Effect: How a Broadway Smash Changed South African Lives

By alternativeafrica
November 15, 2017
1373
0
Share:

This month the show celebrated its 20th anniversary. When Ms. Taymor and Thomas Schumacher, the president of Disney’s theatrical division, were developing it two decades ago, they helped persuade Actors’ Equity to allow for a contingent of South African performers; now every year Disney teams visit Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town to cast more. “It’s like the spiritual foundation of ‘The Lion King’,” Ms. Taymor said.

The life is hard — performers, generally young adults, leave their parents, and often their children, behind, often relocating to countries where they don’t speak the language. But there is adventure to be had, art to be made, money to be earned.

That’s why Ms. Moeketsi, who grew up in a home without electricity, listening to news on a battery-powered radio and hoping to one day become an announcer, started auditioning.

She had moved from her village to Johannesburg for college, and, as she wrapped up her studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, she saw “The Lion King” as her best hope, professionally and financially.

She was seeking to join a generation of South African performers who have landed jobs in the musical. Some have found new homes, new families, new careers. Others have struggled to translate the opportunity into sustained success.

All have been changed.

‘I Wanted to Make My Name’

The gangster’s wife is worried.

Brenda Mhlongo is seated on a plush couch in a television studio, rehearsing her reproachful stare while a makeup artist touches up her face. At the same time she and a language adviser on headset are quibbling about how best to phrase “Where is your shirt?” in Zulu.

It’s a long way from Pride Rock.

Ms. Mhlongo, 38, is a “Lion King” success story — a grateful alumna who parlayed a stint with Disney into a significant television career back home. She now stars on “Generations: The Legacy,” South Africa’s second-most popular soap opera, or soapie, playing a nurse married to a mobster.

Photo

Brenda Mhlongo, a former Rafiki on Broadway, getting made up on the set of “Generations: The Legacy,” a South African soap opera. She returned home after years in various “Lion King” productions. Credit Joao Silva/The New York Times

Along the way she faced years of unemployment and a spiritual crisis. But her journey illustrates the possibilities for “Lion King” performers who spend years on stage overseas and then try to continue working in the arts back home.

Continue reading the main story

“I knew I would come back, because I wanted to make my name in South Africa,” Ms. Mhlongo said. Filming was over; breathless after a quick wig-and-costume change, she apologized that her typically fashionable character had been dressed casually for the late-night living room scene.

Ms. Mhlongo, who grew up in KwaMashu — a township north of Durban where black people were resettled during apartheid — was a teenage mother when she first saw the animated “Lion King,” and discovered that watching the video soothed her baby daughter. (They would skip the sad stampede scene.)

She spent years performing with K-Cap (KwaMashu Community Advancement Projects), an arts program founded and led by her husband. But by 2007, when she learned that Disney was holding auditions in Durban, she was ready for a bigger stage.

Although many South Africans, like Ms. Moeketsi, try out year after year, Ms. Mhlongo was hired on the spot to play Rafiki in “Festival of the Lion King,” a 30-minute revue, at Hong Kong Disneyland. She left a 3-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter to be raised by her husband.

While there she had another stroke of good fortune: She was spotted by a vacationing Disney executive who recruited her to join the “Lion King” production that has been running in Germany for 16 years.

But Ms. Mhlongo only lasted three months in Hamburg, before she left the show, citing “spiritual sickness.”

Rafiki is the one principal part regularly played by a South African woman. Inspired by a sangoma, a type of South African faith healer who, according to belief, can channel ancestral spirits, the character was troublesome for Ms. Mhlongo, as it has been for other South African women, because she felt at times unable to manage dark feelings she believed the ancestors were surfacing. (Some productions keep sage and other herbs on hand as antidotes.)

Continue reading the main story

She recovered — “I had to fast and pray, and at home they had to do a lot of ceremonies” — and her career resumed. She performed in the ensemble, while understudying Rafiki, in Johannesburg and on Broadway, and then played the role on tour in North America.

Continue reading the main story

SHARE ON:
TagsAfricaBreakingDurban (South Africa)Johannesburg (South Africa)NewsTaymor, JulieThe Lion King (Play)TheaterWalt Disney Company
Previous Article

2018 World Cup: Nigeria federation move to ...

Next Article

Aamir Khan: The Snake Charmer

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

alternativeafrica

Related articles More from author

  • News Now

    South Sudan clashes ‘kill 170’

    December 12, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • AfricaAnne's DiaryBusinessNews Now

    Niger woman entrepreneur secures AFDB financing after inspiring story about five years of struggle

    April 20, 2019
    By alternativeafrica
  • News NowWorld

    SIGAR report puts Afghan security deficiencies in focus

    September 22, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    Kenya election: Gunshot wounds amid Kisumu clashes

    October 26, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    The Gambia consider quitting WAFU over officiating

    September 11, 2017
    By alternativeafrica
  • News Now

    2018 World Cup: Egypt’s president rewards players and coach

    October 9, 2017
    By alternativeafrica

Leave a reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You might be interested

  • BusinessNews Now

    Ghana parliament demands explanation on $84m oil money allocated for budget funding

  • BusinessNews Now

    Nigeria: LASG engages 10 bakeries in mass production of coconut bread

  • AfricaHealthNews Now

    Worried scientist says South Africa will probably experience covid-19 spikes into 2022

Timeline

  • March 6, 2021

    UK to cut aid to Nigeria, other African countries by more than 50%

  • March 6, 2021

    All you need to know about the side effects of COVID-19 vaccine

  • March 6, 2021

    Ghanaian footballer faces life jail over death of policeman

  • March 5, 2021

    Ghana receives additional 50k doses of covid-19 vaccines from India

  • March 5, 2021

    Confidence in covid-19 vaccines grows as medical doctor gets first jab in Nigeria

  • Popular

  • Comments

  • Lagos govt confirms first case of deadly coronavirus infection in Nigeria

    By alternativeafrica
    February 28, 2020
  • Keynote Address of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at 2018 Oxford Africa Conference

    By PSJ Africa
    May 14, 2018
  • Morocco begins regional integration by connecting Casablanca Airport with High Speed Train

    By alternativeafrica
    January 4, 2020
  • Kenyan govt pressure Facebook for data on Kenyan users

    By alternativeafrica
    November 20, 2019
  • Nigeria: 32,000 capacity Lagos rice mill to start production in 2020

    By alternativeafrica
    December 23, 2019
  • Ado zagi
    on
    January 12, 2021

    Nigeria: EFCC Academy to begin award of degree

    Diploma leave areply from
  • Ethiopia joins Africa's Artificial Intelligence revolution | Alternative Africa
    on
    October 2, 2020

    Spending on Artificial Intelligence Systems in Africa, Middle East to top $374 million in 2020

    […] Many African countries ...
  • The 5 most popular Africans 2020
    on
    September 25, 2020

    Celebrating Congolese doctor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the man behind breakthrough of Ebola cure

    […] Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe ...
  • Millitants in Central Mali Set Jail Ablaze in Attack Killing Two | taktik(z) GDI (Government Defense ...
    on
    August 11, 2020

    Fifteen gendarmes killed in another attack on Mali camp

    […] attack fol­lowed a January ...
  • Millitants in Central Mali Set Jail Ablaze in Attack Killing Two
    on
    August 11, 2020

    Fifteen gendarmes killed in another attack on Mali camp

    […] attack followed a ...
AlternativeAfrica.com is an independent Pan African News Website dedicated primarily to influencing the negative narratives about Africa. We hope to do this by focusing and showcasing the many developmental strides sweeping across the continent.

Read more >>>

Contact Info

  • info@alternativeafrica.com
  • Recent

  • Popular

  • Comments

  • UK to cut aid to Nigeria, other African countries by more than 50%

    By alternativeafrica
    March 6, 2021
  • All you need to know about the side effects of COVID-19 vaccine

    By alternativeafrica
    March 6, 2021
  • Ghanaian footballer faces life jail over death of policeman

    By alternativeafrica
    March 6, 2021
  • Ghana receives additional 50k doses of covid-19 vaccines from India

    By alternativeafrica
    March 5, 2021
  • Lagos govt confirms first case of deadly coronavirus infection in Nigeria

    By alternativeafrica
    February 28, 2020
  • Keynote Address of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at 2018 Oxford Africa Conference

    By PSJ Africa
    May 14, 2018
  • Macron in Ivory Coast to launch anti-terrorism academy

    By alternativeafrica
    December 21, 2019
  • Kenyan govt pressure Facebook for data on Kenyan users

    By alternativeafrica
    November 20, 2019
  • Ado zagi
    on
    January 12, 2021

    Nigeria: EFCC Academy to begin award of degree

    Diploma leave areply from
  • Ethiopia joins Africa's Artificial Intelligence revolution | Alternative Africa
    on
    October 2, 2020

    Spending on Artificial Intelligence Systems in Africa, Middle East to top $374 million in 2020

    […] Many African countries ...
  • The 5 most popular Africans 2020
    on
    September 25, 2020

    Celebrating Congolese doctor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the man behind breakthrough of Ebola cure

    […] Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe ...
  • Millitants in Central Mali Set Jail Ablaze in Attack Killing Two | taktik(z) GDI (Government Defense ...
    on
    August 11, 2020

    Fifteen gendarmes killed in another attack on Mali camp

    […] attack fol­lowed a January ...

Photostream

    Follow us

    • Home
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Contact Us
    © Copyright Alternative Africa 2019. All rights reserved.