Five Inside: Get to Know Lindiwe Dlamini, The Lion King's Sole Original Cast Member

The Broadway musical staging of The Lion King has become synonymous with New York City: It's tough to picture Times Square without the glossy windows of the Minskoff adorned in that signature golden yellow. It's a usual suspect in the weekly list of top-grossing Great Bright Way productions, and the Disney show plays all across the globe in nine different languages. Turning 29 this November, it has welcomed numerous young cubs as well as top Broadway talents (Heather Headley, Gavin Lee and Christopher Jackson, to name a few) through its doors over its many years. Cast member Lindiwe Dlamini has been there since the very beginning.

"[The opportunity] came right when I was almost giving up [on New York theater]," she recalled. "I was getting ready to go back home to South Africa. I thought I was done. Then, the show came. I was like, 'The cartoon? What are they going to do with the cartoon? How are we going to do a show like that?'"

Dlamini hails from South Africa, where she grew up the daughter of a pastor. A family musical group called The Goings landed her and her sister, Ntomb’khona Dlamini, Broadway debuts in Sarafina! in 1988. Nearly a decade later, both sisters got to go on to the Disney hit. 

"Lindiwe is—I feel like—the closest thing we have to a matriarch. Having somebody like her, who has been there from the very beginning has been an invaluable part of my process," said L. Steven Taylor, who plays Mufasa in the long-runner. "When I first came into the show, I was really hungry for information. You generally get four to six weeks to rehearse the show. I had two. So, I really relied on people like Lindiwe to give me some insight into what I was stepping into."

Back in 1997, Dlamini herself wasn't quite sure what she was stepping into, arriving each day at 890 Broadway for rehearsals. She learned puppetry for the show that would make Julie Taymor (fun fact: the aunt of The Outsiders director Danya Taymor) a two-time Tony winner, both for direction and costume design. She recounted stories of costumes being adjusted as the Tony-winning choreography took shape.

Gibney is truly hallowed ground when it comes to Broadway, and a rehearsal room is a sacred space when it comes to creating something new. It's enjoyable to try and imagine what a show as literally and figuratively massive as The Lion King looked like in a rehearsal room in 1997; Dlamini is one of the lucky few who gets to remember.

"Every day, we were in tears hearing Heather [Headley] sing," she said. "We had one room for just the singers. Then another room was just the dancers. The principals were in their own room. Every time something was going on, they would come get us so we could experience it while it was being developed. So let's say Mufasa's scene is going on. They'd bring us in so that we can be connected with everybody. They'd bring others in when we were singing. By the time we rehearsed all of us, we knew what was going on. [The out-of-town tryout in] Minneapolis—that was the first day where we did the whole show in full costume. That's when I was like 'OK, this is going to be amazing. This thing is gonna be big.'"

The Lion King experience has also been seismic for Dlamini's personal life. Her husband Bongi (you can spot them both in this "Circle of Life" Club Broadway.com performance!) happens to be from the same town in South Africa. He joined the Broadway production of The Lion King after doing the show in Germany. "We clicked. I started showing him around," she said with a chuckle. "I found out he loves Indian food. That's my favorite food—other than South African food! We started going to this Indian restaurant together and started talking about home. Now, we have a daughter together. She's about to graduate high school. She wants to come and see the show any chance she gets."

Lindiwe has now performed in The Lion King on Broadway well over 10,000 times, but claims it doesn't feel like that many: "Every day, we have a different audience. We experience their energy, their joy when we're going down the aisles. That makes it fresh every single time."

The Broadway Show's new Five Inside series highlights the individuals who help bring Broadway's long-running shows to life, both onstage and off.

GET TO KNOW THE LION KING FAMILY
The Star: L. Steven Taylor | The Debut: Jeremy Noel | The Long-Runner: Lindiwe Dlamini | The Creative Engine: Musical Director Cherie Rosen |  The Backstage MVP: Production Stage Manager Antonia Gianino

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