When the producers were looking for a resident director for The Lion King national tour, Dodd Loomis was the obvious choice.
He had directing experience, off- and on Broadway. He had worked for 2 1/2 years with Lion King director Julie Taymor, as assistant director for her Broadway spectacular, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
And before that, he'd spent seven years as a puppeteer, master puppeteer and associate director for a touring show called Mabou Mines Dollhouse. Puppets are a large portion of the Lion King experience.
"It's been very helpful to have that background," Loomis says. "I met with Tom Schumacher, the president of Disney Theatrics, and from his perspective: 'You have a relationship with Julie Taymor. You have a background in puppetry. You've been a director for 15 years, you've worked on really big shows, with casts of 100, 150 people; you've worked on Broadway. To my mind, it's a no-brainer.'"
In a touring company, the resident director has myriad responsibilities, first and foremost to "continuously monitor the production and ensure that Julie Taymor's vision and the show's artistic integrity are maintained," according to a news release. In addition, he's the go-to guy for all the things that have to be done to make sure the show runs smoothly on a day-to-day basis.
Related story
Loomis is in charge of the massive Lion King road company -- the 137 company members between actors, stage managers, crew, costumers, makeup artists, electricians and sound engineers, as well as the additional 140 local hires in each city the tour visits who have to be trained up in a very short period of time, in most cases, just a day or less.
Each time the show moves, there's a rehearsal run-through -- "a crash course predominantly for them, but we're refocusing the lights, dialing in the sound, getting the sound mixed."
The cast also has completely different costume change stations; backstage, the different orientation, gives them an opportunity to get familiar with their backstage patterns. Loomis must establish, and sometimes change, where the entrances and exits will take place.
"I'm constantly floating around the theater; sometimes we re-stage things, change entrances or exits; I have alternate blocking that we can do for different scenes if the sight lines aren't good, or if the normal blocking causes the lights to clip the proscenium.
"And I get information from backstage -- Pumba is 7 feet long and his puppet alone weighs 50 pounds, and he has these huge crosses where he exits stage left and appears stage right, and the traffic pattern backstage, trying to get him from one place to another, can be a mess.
"To try to figure out that many moving pieces and parts in such a short amount a time is very difficult. We do it for nobody once; then we have 3,000 people coming tonight."
The local hires serve "any and all functions," Loomis says, including electricians, carpenters and a couple of dozen people to supplement the already massive wardrobe team. "Laundry," he says. "There are thousands and thousands of costumes that have to be washed, especially if we're doing two shows a day."
He's also the liaison with each theater's existing front-of-house staff, more important for this production than for most.
"We have a lot of entrances and exits through the lobby and up in the balcony and all over the place," he explains. "It's a little different from other shows, so we have to lock down spaces. We have a lot of wardrobe personnel out in lobby, laying out costumes. You have families with children trying to get to the bathroom stepping over 25 hyena harnesses.
"It definitely takes a village."
Still, he describes his job as creative as well as administrative.
"The singular sentence that defines what I do is to maintain the original artistic integrity of the production. In doing that I'm the only one who can note any and all creative elements. So there is somebody there to represent the dance department, but they are only noting and working with dancers. The conductor is conducting the orchestra and working with singers and harmonies. And then there are department heads for every department, sound, costume, makeup, hair-and-wig.
"My job is to be the eyeballs and the voice of all creative elements. If Nala's costume is faded or doesn't fit her properly, I have to have that corrected -- go to the head of the costume department and try to get that fixed. Makeup -- they say, 'We ordered X powder to mix and we got Y, and the hue is off.' If the sound mix isn't right in the balcony.
"And then, of course, the most obvious, is communicating directly with the actors. I put in all the actors, so if we have a new Mufasa, a new Nala, a new Scar, I train them, usually for one month, teach them their physicality -- there's a very specific physicality for each character, and all very different. I teach them how to use their puppets; I would say most, if not all, people who come in have basically no puppetry experience, so everyone has to be trained from scratch on how to do that.
"And of course, acting -- we use accents; there's a very particular style for the show. And of course blocking and staging and how everyone moves."
The first week of any tour stop is all about getting the show up and running, he says; the second week transitions into daily rehearsals.
"We just swapped actors out between us and Broadway," he explains. "The stage is different, the cast is different, everything is a little different."
Each main character may have as many as three "covers" -- basically understudies -- embedded in the cast, serving in smaller roles or chorus parts but ready to swing into the principal role for which they've been rehearsing.
"It allows us to have a big, healthy company -- different combinations, swinging people out, helps keep voices healthy," Loomis says. And these roles can toll on any actor: "The puppets are heavy; they're in physical therapy each day, you'll see them with buttons on their shirts: 'I'm resting my voice.' Everyone's hitting the gym, everyone's trying to stay physically fit." With the covers, he says, "anybody can go on at any time and the audience is always getting a superb show."
Loomis has been on the road with this show "three years and change -- I think this is my 47th city. I travel with my wife and 1 1/2-year-old daughter. We just hop from place to place.
"By time the baby was 1, she had been to 19 states, and on 26 airplanes. And then she's done I don't know how many thousand-mile road trips."
-- Eric E. Harrison
Style on 04/17/2018