Dan Fields, is the Assistant Director for the mega-hit Broadway musical, "The Lion King". Mr. Fields gave HarlemLive a few moments in between rehearsal to share some of his experiences in this world famous musical.

HarlemLive asked Mr. Fields what some of the inspirations were for the show because of it's strong African influence. He said that one of the inspirations was the movie version of "The Lion King". Julie Taymore, the Tony award winning Director and creative designer for the show was inspired by the animals and the scenery of Africa in the movie version. She was also inspired by the South African music. For the Broadway production, Ms. Taymore wanted to bring out more of the South African music. Ms. Taymore worked with the composer and one of the vocal arrangers, who did all the South African oral sounds for the show.

The emphasis was the whole look of Africa from the clothing, the colors, and the appearance of the puppets.

If you saw the puppet mask of Mufasa, it looks like the face of Mufasa from the movie. The amazing thing is that the mask looks like it's carved from wood, but it's actually made from carbon graphite, a light plastic material. Mr. Fields said hundreds of animals were researched to copy the actual look of the animal prints. Ms. Taymore also studied the African tribal masks, costumes and traditional rituals. To create the designs for the set, she researched African grasslands, jungles, and deserts.

In the show, each actor works with a puppet. These puppets were designed by Julie Taymore and Michael Curry, they create the puppets to show how the puppets would actually move in real life.

As for Mr. Fields' favorite parts of the show, he enjoys the grassland scene and the scene with the ghost of Mufasa because these are the most simple and beautiful scenes in the show.

When we asked if he feels a lot of pressure from the show because it's a major Disney production and world famous, he says he doesn't feel too much pressure because everyone works together to maintain a high level of excellence. Everybody works to keep the show as exciting for the audience as it was opening night.

Even though Mr. Fields has directed things other than musicals, he says that directing a musical is very different from directing a play because in a play you have to know the actors' characters and where they move. But for a musical like The Lion King, you have to direct actors to act, sing, dance and move within the puppet framework.

Finally, Mr. Fields says that even though everyone has projects they'd like to get involved in, right now he really loves being a part of The Lion King and would not want to leave the show. That's how most people in the production feel.