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Ray Mercer.
Ray Mercer had simply completed his eighth efficiency of the week in Disney’s Broadway manufacturing of The Lion King. He hung up his closing costume, returned his microphone, and headed to the stage door. He is often the primary one out, and his common routine is to signal playbills from patrons excited to satisfy the actors.
That night time’s encounter on the stage door was a bit of totally different: A lady who had simply attended the present together with her kids requested him to signal his playbill—and he observed he’d already signed it. It turned out that this girl noticed Mercer within the present 18 years earlier than, when he was just some years into his Lion King tenure, and that night time she had introduced her younger youngsters alongside to share within the expertise she’d had years earlier than: seeing somebody who seemed like her on the Great White Way.
This full-circle second is only one of many who Mercer has had all through his historic 20-year run with the enduring manufacturing, which simply celebrated its twenty fifth anniversary on Broadway. He will not be the present’s longest-running solid member—that will be Lindiwe Dlamini, who has been within the present since its opening—however Mercer’s two-decade stint within the Disney hit nonetheless places him in a rarefied place. While he has had totally different roles through the years, Mercer at present seems because the 14-foot-tall giraffe, and serves because the present’s combat captain.
A local of Omaha, Neb., Mercer by no means imagined that life would take him 1,200 miles away to the Great White Way. “God can dream a bigger dream than you can dream for yourself,” Mercer stated in a latest interview. He was all the time drawn to efficiency, however Broadway wasn’t precisely within the image. In reality, earlier than auditioning for the present, he had been coaching to turn out to be an Olympic gymnast. Little did he know that gymnastic coaching could be preferrred preparation for his Broadway debut.
His important background, although, was in dance. When he was 17, Mercer was launched by a good friend to ballet. “I walked into the studio and there were six- and seven-year-olds in pink tights and tutus, and here I was, this grown man going to this ballet class. But I fell in love with it,” he recalled. After attending faculty on the University of New Orleans, he labored as a flight attendant in Detroit for what’s now often known as Delta Airlines—the proper job, based on Mercer, as a result of it allowed him the flexibleness to audition and proceed coaching in dance.
Mercer’s journey introduced him to the best place on the proper time. He was dancing with Deeply Rooted, a dance firm primarily based in Chicago, the place The Lion King occurred to be holding auditions in 2003. Mercer advised me he remembers the audition prefer it was yesterday.
“Every Black person in Chicago knew about this Lion King audition!” he stated. Among a name with 80 different male dancers, he stated, “I was a nervous wreck for the biggest reason: I wanted this job so bad. Sometimes it’s not about talent, it’s about what they are looking for. But I knew in my gut that this was exactly what I wanted to do.”
Mercer lasted a complete day within the audition, survived two cuts from casting, and watched because the room dwindled from 80 to five. As his cohort shrunk and the stress grew, the choreographer requested the remaining dancers if they’d any tumbling expertise. Mercer laughingly recalled how he flipped throughout that studio as if his life trusted it. Just two of the dancers in that room ended up solid in The Lion King, and one was Mercer.
The relaxation, you would possibly say, is historical past, however a historical past that retains repeating. Mercer calls his expertise within the present a accountability that he doesn’t take flippantly or with no consideration. Many Black theatregoers, myself included, cherish the Broadway manufacturing of The Lion King as one of many first occasions we noticed ourselves represented onstage in a significant manufacturing. Mercer understands how that illustration resonates each on and off the stage. It’s additionally his catalyst for performing each night time.
Mercer spoke passionately concerning the first time he noticed a Broadway present: His aunt gifted him tickets to see The Tap Dance Kid. Mercer even remembers which seat he sat in on the Minskoff Theatre, now the house of The Lion King. “It changed my life forever. The impact of what it’s like when you see somebody who looks like you—it fills you with possibilities.” Now, he will get to be that very same position mannequin for the subsequent technology of Broadway actors each night time, and in the identical theatre.
Though Mercer brings his full ardour and dedication to his work onstage each night time, backstage, he’s the solid’s largest prankster; he particularly loves to offer people a fright by hiding behind set items or stowing pretend rodents of their costumes. When he’s not enjoying jokes on his castmates, he’s sharing recommendation and knowledge with them. Mercer stated he reminds them that when they’re feeling drained or burned out, “Remember where you were when you first received that phone call that you would be in The Lion King. Remember that feeling and remember that joy.”
There have additionally been some moments he seems again on with amusement. He laughed as he recalled the time when, throughout a efficiency on his birthday, he acquired midway by means of a scene in his giraffe costume when his foot slid and he couldn’t recuperate his stability. A few stagehands needed to pull on his giraffe legs and slide him off the stage, and he obtained a spherical of applause from the viewers.
When not doing eight exhibits per week, Mercer is pursuing his different ardour of being a choreographer. Mercer holds the title as probably the most profitable choreographer for the Broadway Cares’ Red Bucket Follies annual fundraiser. More just lately he choregraphed dance items on the American Midwest Ballet, the Omaha Performing Arts Theatre, and Jersey Boys at Theatre Aspen.
“I like to feel nervous about a project—those are the rooms that inspire me,” he stated of his work exterior The Lion King, the place the inspiration comes from a job finished properly for a brand new viewers each night time.
Rachelle Legrand (she/her) is an editorial contributor to American Theatre.
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