The Pantages, by contrast, has 2,700 seats. The size of the Shubert, with 2,100 seats, is closer to that of the show’s New York home, the 1,800-seat New Amsterdam. By contrast, the orchestra level of the Shubert has entrances only from the sides. During the first and most famous scene in “The Lion King,” a parade of actors lavishly dressed and masked as animals enters from the lobby and proceeds down the aisles to the front of the theater. The Pantages also comes with an advantage in its configuration-it has aisles that lead into the orchestra from the rear. He cited Disney’s success with the restoration of the El Capitan movie theater on the same street, a few blocks west. “Hollywood is very easily accessible for everyone,” Schumacher said. The subway recently opened its Hollywood and Vine station across the street from the theater, and the subway construction that tore up Hollywood Boulevard for a long time, discouraging visitors, is gone. Nearly everyone agrees that “Lion King,” because of its phenomenal success on Broadway and as a movie, can sustain the nine months allotted to it so far at the Pantages, if not more.ĭiscussing their reasons for picking the Pantages, Schneider and Schumacher focused mostly on its neighborhood. Its longest tenant was “La Cage aux Folles,” which played there for 39 weeks in 1984-85. But the Pantages hasn’t nabbed many long runs. The Pantages, originally built as a movie palace (its 1930 opening included a Disney cartoon), first became a contender for big musicals in 1977, when the Nederlander Organization-traditionally in second place, after the Shuberts, as a Broadway power-became part-owner and chief booker of the theater. But the Ahmanson is primarily devoted to its nonprofit Center Theatre Group subscription series, so it’s generally unavailable for runs of many months.

The Ahmanson also was the place to see “Miss Saigon” for nine months. A likely alternative to the Shubert might have been the Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center, which hosted “The Phantom of the Opera” in the longest and most lucrative run ever in the big theaters of L.A.

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