{"id":260673,"date":"2026-06-09T15:46:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/260673\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T15:46:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:46:21","slug":"the-lion-king-broadway-and-tour-stars-robb-sapp-and-sam-linda-switch-productions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/260673\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lion King Broadway and Tour Stars Robb Sapp and Sam Linda Switch Productions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robb Sapp<\/a> and Sam Linda<\/a>, who had been playing\u00a0the role of Ed in the Broadway and touring productions of The Lion King<\/a>, respectively, switch productions this week.<\/p>\n

Linda, who has played Ed on The Lion King North
\n American tour since 2024 and has previously performed at the Lyric
\nOpera of Chicago, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and Drury Lane Theater, is making his Broadway debut as Ed starting June 9 at the Minskoff\u00a0and continuing through September 6. <\/p>\n

Sapp, who has played Ed in the Broadway production of The Lion King
\n since 2021 and has performed with the show\u2019s Las Vegas sit-down
\nproduction and the North American tour, is playing\u00a0three North American
\ntour engagements:
\nAronoff Center in Cincinnati, June 10\u2013July 5; Playhouse Square<\/a> in
\nCleveland (his hometown), July 8\u2013August 16; and Place des Arts in
\nMontreal, August 19\u2013September 6. Sapp’s other Broadway credits include Wicked<\/a> and Shrek the Musical<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conceiver, director, costume designer, and mask co-designer Julie
\nTaymor, the first woman to win a Tony for Best Director of a Musical,
\nremains actively involved in the show, launching new productions and
\nmaintaining the flagship Broadway production. Composer Lebo M<\/a> and
\nTony-winning choreographer Garth Fagan<\/a> hold their own records: With The Lion King at over 11,100 Main Stem performances, they are the longest-running Black composer and choreographer in Broadway history.<\/p>\n

Many of the artists and craftspeople who launched the show remain an
\nintegral part of it. Lindiwe Dlamini<\/a> has performed in the musical since
\nits first pre-Broadway preview in Minneapolis summer 1997. <\/p>\n

READ: Bonita J. Hamilton Has Played the Hyena Shenzi in Broadway’s The Lion King for 17 Years<\/a><\/p>\n

The worldwide gross of The Lion King musical exceeds that of any film, Broadway show, or other entertainment title in box-office history.<\/p>\n

The Lion King won six Tony Awards in 1998: Best Musical,
\nBest Scenic Design (Richard Hudson<\/a>), Best Costume Design (Julie Taymor<\/a>),
\n Best Lighting Design (Donald Holder<\/a>), Best Choreography (Garth Fagan),
\nand Best Direction of a Musical. The international hit musical has also
\nearned more than 70 major arts awards, including the 1998 NY Drama
\nCritics Circle Award for Best Musical, the 1999 Grammy for Best Musical
\nShow Album, the 1999 Evening Standard Award for Theatrical Event of the
\nYear, and the 1999 Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Choreography and
\nBest Costume Design.<\/p>\n

Visit the Playbill Store for The Lion King merchandise.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Broadway score features Elton John<\/a> and Tim Rice<\/a>\u2019s songs from The Lion King
\n animated film, along with three new songs by the pair. There’s also
\nadditional musical material by Lebo M, Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, Julie
\nTaymor, and Hans Zimmer. It also inspired an album: Rhythm of the Pride Lands, written by Lebo M, Mark Mancina, and Hans Zimmer.<\/p>\n

The book was adapted by Roger Allers<\/a>, who co-directed the animated The Lion King feature, and Irene Mecchi<\/a>, who co-wrote the film\u2019s screenplay.<\/p>\n

The stage production was originally produced by Peter Schneider and
\nThomas Schumacher. Other members of the creative team include Michael
\nCurry (who designed the masks and puppets with Taymor), sound
\ndesigner Steve Canyon Kennedy<\/a>, hair and makeup designer Michael Ward<\/a>,
\nmusic supervisors David Kreppel<\/a> and Sean Mayes<\/a>, associate
\ndirector Anthony Lyn<\/a>, associate choreographer Marey Griffith<\/a>,
\nproduction supervisor Lisa Dawn Cave<\/a>, general manager Thomas Schlenk<\/a>,
\nassociate music producer Robert Elhai<\/a>, music coordinator Michael Keller<\/a>,
\n orchestrators Robert Elhai and David Metzger<\/a>, fight director Rick
\nSordelet, and casting by ARC<\/a>‘s Mark Brandon.<\/p>\n

The musical is produced by Disney Theatrical Group, under the
\ndirection of Andrew Flatt<\/a> and Anne Quart<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robb Sapp and Sam Linda, who had been playing\u00a0the role of Ed in the Broadway and touring productions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-260673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}