Bel Aire students will take audiences on romp across the savanna in ‘Lion King’

Dressed in gold costumes and lion cub ears, Bel Aire Elementary School students rehearse their roles in ‘The Lion King Jr.’ at the Tiburon campus on March 7. (Ted McDonnell / For The Ark)

Bel Aire Elementary School students will bring the African savanna roaring to life in their upcoming production of “The Lion King Jr.”

About 120 students across two casts — Pride Lands and Pride Rock — will perform six stagings of the show March 24-28.

The play is adapted for younger performers from the long-running Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, which debuted in 1997 and is itself based on the popular 1994 animated Disney film.

The story follows Simba, the lion cub in line to rule the Pride Lands. Young Simba is forced to flee into exile after his father, Mufasa, is killed in a stampede orchestrated by his villainous uncle, Scar, in an attempt to seize the throne. As Simba grows up, he returns to his homeland with friends Timon and Pumbaa in tow to rescue the Pride Lands from Scar’s tyrannical rule and fulfill his destiny as the rightful heir to the throne.

For many Bel Aire students — all of whom were born some two decades after the movie premiered — the play served as their introduction to the classic tale.

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