“In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...”
Well, who could blame him?There are those marathon matinees he has to rest up for. And eight performances a week? It could give even the king of the jungle...paws.
But in the case of Sellersville's Jeremy Noel, it is the paws that refreshes. The Bucks County resident's carnivore of a character, the sinewy sympathetic Simba, is, simply, the coolest cat in the cast of "The Lion King," the roar of a musical — the mane man of Broadway for the past 26 years — returning to Philadelphia on an extended engagement for the first time in eight years. It runs from Aug. 16 to Sept. 10, at the Academy of Music.
For Noel, it's like a Christmas present every time he performs. Can he feel the love tonight? "I feel it every night on stage," says the protean performer, 23, who moved with his family to Bucks from Philadelphia at the age of 7.
And if he's not getting the lion's share of the attention every night — Noel understudies the character of Mufasa's mischievous scion/son — his other part as a member of the energetic ensemble isn't exactly played for peanuts: Noel nimbly portrays the enormous elephant whose first appearance, lumbering down the theater's aisles, provides an eye-opener of an opening scene.
But then Noel has been catching audiences' eyes for years. There was the one-act play he did as a workshop at the Bucks County Playhouse while a teen, and, at Pennridge High School, Noel did "Spamalot" and a lot of other musical theater, finding happiness in "Les Miserables," a pyramid scheme of scenes in "Aida" and making an ass of himself in "Shrek." Well, it's what the script called for: "I played Donkey," he chuckles.
And his parents have played perhaps the biggest roles in his life: Cartion and Necholas Noel have provided the circle of love that squares with their son's many interests, abetting his tapping into his talents as a composer — "I love writing melodies" — and calisthenics. Working out, he avers, works the kinks out of life. "It's peaceful for me."
His folks understood this early on. "They are my rock," he says with pride. Uh, make that, "They are my Pride Rock," and he laughs.
The roar of the crowd came early on, in 6th grade at Pennridge Central Middle School. It was there, he vividly remembers, that his ambitions took flight when he saw his brother, also a musical performer, in a production of "Peter Pan."
"My first musical," he says.
Certainly not his last. Earning a BFA at Ithaca College helped get him the degree of confidence he needed to land feet first amid the footlights. Indeed, on tour with "The Lion King" for more than a year, he will be making his Philadelphia debut as a professional performer when he brings Simba to the city.
And there will be a hometown crowd to cheer him on. "My whole church will be there" when he is scheduled to go on as Simba (Aug. 19, evening performance; Sept. 2, matinee). The church "treats me like a celebrity, like a rock star."
But there is a serious side to what Noel's learned from doing the Simba samba, which, in reality, he has been doing since he turned 3, when the tot was taken to see the Disney movie. After that, Noel did everything to be prepared to take on the part.
"I used to walk around imitating a lion," he said.
Indeed, in many ways, he couldn't wait to be king. At Career Day at Pennridge High, "I told people, 'One day I will be in 'The Lion King.' "
He wasn't lying.
"Here I am," he says, still marveling at his role in life on the same Kimmel campus where he trained in jazz singing as a kid and attended Kimmel's prestigious Jazz Camp.
Now, coming to the Academy, he is one happy camper, set to star in a show he had never seen on stage prior to scoring as the Simba understudy and ensemble member.
"I could pinch myself every time I go on to perform," he said.
There is more than a pinch of passion he brings to the part — and appreciation for what it has done for him.
"Simba," he notes, "has taught me things; he has made me more vulnerable, taught me about [the need for] vulnerability."
At this stage, is Noel feeling vulnerable to the vicissitudes of a business where uncertainty is maybe its only constant? While the show's tour is, like Pumbaa, in no danger of running out of gas, Noel knows one thing for sure — he isn't concerned about his future.
No worries?
"No," he says. "Hakuna Matata."
Michael Elkin is a playwright, theater critic and novelist who lives in Abington. He writes occasional columns about theater and the arts.
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