From Animation to Theatre: The Experience of Adapting Successful Animations to Stage Theatre in Broadway Theatre Case Study: The Lion King

For a long time, Broadway Theatre in the US by adapting successful animations to musicals has opened a new path for theatre producers – especially in the field of commercial theatre. The vast eagerness of audiences for remarkable musicals such as The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, Madagascar, Shrek  throughout the world has encouraged important theatres to do the same as Broadway. This trend has been followed in some Asian countries – particularly Japan – as well, reviving interest in theatre, which after the emergence of television and cinema had lost part of its audience. This paper aims to offer an accurate picture of the process of adapting animation to stage theatre and attract the attention of theatre managers, producers, directors, and others in Iran to this significant process. The Lion King as the most successful animation and musical ever has been chosen as the case study to be analyzed in the present research. The director and artists of the Lion king musical performed all the elements on stage in an avant-garde fashion with full fidelity to the animation text and excited the audience to transform fantasy elements into reality. The result indicates that this kind of adaptation is now commonly used by famous theatres and has been able to bring a new generation of audience to theatres. This process of adaptation is not limited to the works for children and it is possible to objectify the fantasy atmosphere in the country’s successful animations with theatrical elements and produce successful artistic-industrial performances in the country like Lion king and attract all kinds of audiences to this new type of theater.