Denver’s Akil LuQman won’t be in the national touring production of “The Lion King” when it returns to Denver beginning Thursday. But the original Young Simba has a plan.
“I can’t wait until I turn 18 so I can go back and audition to play Adult Simba,” LuQman said. The biological clock now reads 13 months.
LuQman was 12 when he was chosen from a national field to play Young Simba in 2002. After a year, he had grown too tall and was replaced. If he realizes his dream, he will have done something that may never before have been accomplished in any national theatrical endeavor: A kid actor grows up to play the adult version of himself in the same ongoing musical.
Talk about a Disney story.
“That would be poetry,” said David Schrader, Disney’s CFO and managing director. “It would be amazing.”
The past four years have flown by for LuQman, now 16 and a junior at Denver School of the Arts.
“I think about ‘The Lion King’ every day because it was such a good experience for me,” he said. “Just to be in a company of such really good people was something that inspired me because I saw the dedication in the older actors and dancers and performers. How they just accepted me and took care of me made me feel really good. And they provided a model for me for how I should treat other people.”
LuQman can’t wait to meet the kid who will be playing the role he originated next week.
“I just want go to backstage and say hey to him. I want to see how his experiences have been so far and share my experiences from the trip that I had.”
