The Lion King

FLEX TIME

BY KATHERINE OGDEN

The Lion King, Enlightened by Shakespeare

IN A FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND field trip designed to dovetail with the boys’ study of Shakespeare, freshman English students trekked into Manhattan in November to take in a performance of the epic Disney musical The Lion King.

Students have been studying Henry IV and Henry V in class, and English teacher Pete Adams said the coming-of-age theme of the musical is reflected in 16th century plays — and the juxtaposition of the brilliant English bard with a modern, in-the-flesh Broadway production makes for especially fertile ground for learning.

Though Adams initially had trepidations about what he considered a “kids movie,” he has been a fan since he was in graduate school. It was then he saw an interview of acclaimed director Julie Taymor, who won two Tony Awards for her stage adaptation of the animated children’s movie that was The Lion King.

Celebrated as a “shaman of stagecraft,” Taymor brilliantly uses “other things outside of dialogue to communicate intent,” Adams said.

Costumes, masks, music, and dance bring the story alive and flesh out the kind of epic themes and narrative that are worthy of being shared widely and throughout time.

“She is totally idiosyncratic,” Adams said. “It takes a special artist to evoke the Savannah, to visualize a huge war. She does it.”

Upper School teaching fellow Sandro Mariani ’16 and senior Magnus O’Reilly ’23, one of Brunswick’s strongest English students, accompanied the 20 freshmen on the trip.

Adams said O’Reilly provided a cool and fitting “circle” moment on the trip, speaking to his younger classmates on the steps of the New York Public Library about his own journey through high school and the part that Courage, Honor., Truth has played in it.

“Magnus embodies the kind of transformation we want to see in our boys,” Adams said.

LEFT All Class of 2026 unless noted: Alek Modi, Neel Behringer, Mac Ahern, Charlie McGraw, Henry Ginnel, Jack Stevens, Nathan Lee, Jack Whitney-Epstein, Jackson Cunningham, English teacher Peter Adams, Finn O’Sullivan, Magnus O’Reilly ’23, Anthony Sayegh, Henry Graham, Joey Salandra, Josh Katz, Quinn McGraw, Owen Lavin, Burke Watner, Jay O’Connor, Patrick Stern, and Crew Davis

ABOVE Senior Magnus O’Reilly speaks to his fellow (and younger) Brunswick classmates on the steps of the New York Public Library.