Mirvish couldn’t find a rehearsal space large enough for ‘The Lion King.’ So, they moved into a school

When Mirvish was looking to mount its upcoming production of “The Lion King,” it faced one glaring problem: there was no existing rehearsal space in the city that could accommodate Disney’s behemoth blockbuster. 
The scale of the musical is unlike that of many other shows that come through the city. It features a cast of more than 50 actors, plus 290 puppets, ranging from small, sub-Saharan birds to the towering giraffes of the Pride Lands. 
And because Mirvish was planning to host a sit-down production — Toronto’s most recent iterations of “The Lion King” were tours — it meant the company needed to find a dedicated space to rehearse and build the show.
So what did the commercial theatre producer do? It rented an entire school. 
From the outside, Senhor Santo Cristo Catholic School feels like an unlikely place to rehearse a professional theatre production. The three-storey brick building, which opened in 1977 and closed its doors to students in 2016, is ginormous — at least compared to a typical rehearsal studio.
But step inside and it becomes clear why Mirvish and Disney selected the site. Former classrooms now serve as prop and puppetry workshops. The school library has been cleared of books and turned into a music rehearsal studio, while the old infirmary is now occupied by the production’s two physiotherapists. 
The former school gymnasium is at the heart of the operation. It’s where associate choreographer Marey Griffith and other members of the creative team rehearse the musical’s largest group numbers. 
The space has been significantly transformed. Tape covers the floor, outlining key parts of the actual stage. The walls are lined with props, puppets and costumes. But there are still telltale signs of the space’s former life: basketball hoops wrap around the gymnasium and outside its main door is a corridor leading to student change-rooms. 
As strange as this arrangement might seem, there’s good reason why Mirvish and Disney selected this site, entering into a licensing agreement with the Toronto Catholic District School Board for two months. It simply checked off all of the production’s boxes. 
“When a local producer wants to bring in a production of ‘The Lion King,’ one of the biggest challenges is always finding a space where we can rehearse it,” said Lisa Dawn Cave, the musical’s production supervisor. “I have people scout out all the sites and I have a whole list of requirements.”
Some requirements are obvious. (The production needs a space that can fit its entire company of actors and backstage crew.) Others are impressively specific. (The ceilings must be high enough to accommodate the show’s 18-foot giraffe puppets.) 
“We knew pretty early on that it would be a challenge to find a conventional space that would be able to accommodate everything,” said Kendra Bator, general manager at Mirvish. 
The company often uses the studios at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre. (“Come From Away,” which reopened last month, rehearsed there.) But the facility is too small for “The Lion King.” 
Mirvish, however, has faced similar challenges in the past, amid a historical shortage of rehearsal space in the city. In 1989, the original Canadian production of “Les Misérables” rehearsed at the site of a former Canadian Tire. In 2000, when Mirvish was preparing to mount its original production of “The Lion King,” it purchased a church on Roncesvalles Avenue (and an adjacent KFC), turning the former into a rehearsal hall. The site was later used to rehearse the original Canadian production of “Mamma Mia!” but was later redeveloped into condominiums. 
So, early in the planning process for this remount of the “The Lion King,” Bator knew she’d need a similar out-of-the-box idea. 
Work to procure a space for the production began well before the start of rehearsals last month. In October 2023, the Mirvish team conducted its first site visit of the school, taking photos and measurements of the building. Then in January, Cave, who’s based out of New York City, came to Toronto to see the facility herself. 
Bator found the site through an existing contact at the Toronto Catholic District School Board. She and the Mirvish team had considered renting a school for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” rehearsals. In 2019, Mirvish had planned to mount the more ambitious two-part production of the show (currently running in London’s West End), which would have required a larger rehearsal space.
But, after the pandemic, the show’s producers instead opted to present the abridged one-part version of the play that’s on Broadway and that could be rehearsed at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre. 
Cave, who’s in charge of maintaining all productions of “The Lion King” around the world, has never rehearsed the musical in a school before. But the venue offers unique benefits. 
“One of the reasons why this school is a good place to do this is because all of the departments work very closely together … and everything is under one roof, in walking distance,” she said. 
The sheer size of the school also affords the production team multiple rehearsal halls. The gym is divided into two identical stages. On the second floor, one former classroom is a dedicated rehearsal space for the production’s six child actors (who share the roles of Young Simba and Young Nala), while another is used for smaller, more intimate scene work. At any given time, four rehearsals could run simultaneously. 
But the school also presents its own set of challenges. The building, for one, lacks any air conditioning. It was also never intended to be used as a staging ground for a multimillion-dollar Broadway musical. 
It ultimately took about a month for Mirvish to refurbish the school, a process that included installing portable AC, building a sprung floor in the gymnasium and moving in more than 100 crates of production equipment, props and costumes. 
But Cave and her team are already looking ahead to their next move. In a few weeks, the entire production and its menagerie of puppets will make the three-kilometre trek east to Mirvish’s Princess of Wales Theatre, ahead of the start of performances on Nov. 2. By then, the former school will be empty once again, though forever part of “The Lion King” history.