https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/10/how-the-lion-king-became-a-dollar9-billion-broadway-smash
Few of Taymor’s team came from Broadway: Michael Curry, designer and builder of puppets; Richard Hudson, from Zimbabwe and an operatic set designer; Garth Fagan, a Jamaican modern dance choreographer; and lighting designer Donald Holder, who had lit Juan Darien. Lebo M. continued to write new music, with Taymor pitching in to write the lyrics to “Endless Night.” Taymor put together a diverse cast, with a chorus of singers from South Africa whom she planned to fold into the show as the landscape. At one point they would wear boards of grass on their heads to symbolize the grasslands. At a studio on 27th Street, Taymor, Curry, and an army of designers sculpted mask headdresses out of clay and silicone rubber—the regal Mufasa; the demented Scar; the serene Sarabi. They were working around the clock in the summer of 1996 to prepare for the first reading and presentation of their designs to Eisner and the “California crowd,” as one person nicknamed them.
Taymor displayed her creations at 890 Broadway, a hive of theatrical activity once owned by Broadway director Michael Bennett. The actors read through the script and demonstrated puppet techniques. Mario Cantone, a comedian, played Timon. “He was very funny, but he upstaged the puppet,” Taymor said. As the day wore on, the Disney team became more and more skeptical. One of the executives could not grasp the idea of a mask on top of an actor’s head. Is the audience, he asked, going to look at the actor or are they going to look at “that African-type headdress, whatever it is up there?”
“Do you know Bunraku?” Taymor asked. He had no idea what she was talking about. Schumacher shot her a look that said, “They’re film people.” “Have you seen my work?” Taymor persisted. “Of course he had not,” she said, “so I just shut up at that point.”