Lion King cast members go behind the scenes at the big cat exhibit at Potter Park Zoo
LANSING — What do cast members of the Tony Award-winning Lion King musical do with their time off?
Sometimes, they hang out with actual lions.
Jared Dixon, who plays Simba, and Nia Holloway, who plays Nala, ventured over to Potter Park Zoo’s Big Cat exhibit Thursday to visit the real-life animals that inspire the Broadway show.
The Lion King is playing at Wharton Center in East Lansing through July 29.
"To prepare for our roles as lions, surprisingly, we are advised to watch a lot of videos of lions," Holloway said.
"How they move, how they interact with each other. If you come see the show, a lot of the moving that we do, reminds you of how lions move as well."
The two cast members got up close and personal with Dakota, a male, and Ulana and Saida, who are sisters. They were separated only by a fence.
Holloway, the veteran, has been playing Nala for five years. Dixon is a newbie and has been playing Simba for only five weeks.
Dixon says the roles are physically demanding.
"Cats move with ease," Dixon said. "We just witnessed one of them jump on that rock without even a second thought. We have to be able to move in the same way. When we jump onstage as humans, we put a lot of effort into it. But cats, they don’t.
"They jump and land gracefully, so we have to do that and kind of make it look easy. We've got this big tussle in the middle of the show. After that, immediately, we’re talking, and it's supposed to be normal conversation. We’re doing a lot of nose breathing at that point. That’s probably the hardest thing, just marinating the physicality with the acting demands."
Dakota, weighing in at about 450 pounds, is significantly bigger than the girls. Ulana weighs about 350 pounds, while Saida is about 320 pounds.
"This is my first experience being this close to lions," Nia Holloway said. "It’s a powerful feeling. You can feel their power."
In the last city they were in, Dallas, Texas, some of the cast went to a care rescue facility and visited the lions, Dixon said. That was his first experience being close to lions.
The lions sleep about 20 hours each day, but when it's time to eat, they're ready.
While zookeeper Liz Jagenow fed the lions chunks of meat, Dixon and Holloway observed until it was their turn.
"All the meat that we feed our large carnivores is horse meat," Jagenow said. "It's a lot leaner than beef, so it’s a lot healthier. When cats get obese, it’s very hard on their livers and very hard on their kidneys, and it can actually take years off the end of their lives, so we’re very careful."
After the girls were fed, Jagenow offered the Lion King cast members the opportunity to feed them a little bit of milk from a bottle.
After instructing them both how to hold the bottle upside down and squeeze, Dixon and Holloway both gave it a try.
The cats' meals aren’t the exact same every day, zookeeper Annie Marcum said.
"It’s important for us to make sure that they have variability in their day, so their life doesn’t get too predictable," Marcum said. "Most of the diet is comprised by a meat that is made by a company that makes diets for exotic animals. All the vitamins and minerals they need are in there.
"They also get whole prey item added in, like rabbits, fish, chicken, and then they get bones. So how they’re fed changes all the time."
The lionesses are 14 years old, and Dakota will be 12 in November. They can live into their 20s, Marcum said.
"But that’s like saying we can live to be into our 90s to 100s," Jagenow said, "so they are already like middling to late age. They’re getting pretty old. They’re still acting pretty good. They still move around great."
The big cats do get toys.
"The lionesses especially really love balls," Marcum said. "We'll get balls that are anywhere from 12 inches to 2½ to 3 feet in diameter. Any time they get a toy, they get it for a day or two, then it goes away for a little while."
When they're not visiting lions, Dixon and Holloway said they perform in about eight shows each week, sometimes nine or 10. They say they're good friends off stage.
"We get to argue every night and it's the most fun that I have on stage, probably," Dixon said. "It's fun to see the difference in each other every day. She may come in feeling different some days, and some days I come in feeling different."
Holloway agrees.
"You just never know what you’re going to get from the person you’re across from," she said. "That’s the fun and difficult part."
Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickkiD.