Phylicia Pearl Mpasi

Phylicia Pearl Mpasi (born November 16) is an American actress and writer. She began her career by performing in the Broadway production of The Lion King. Quotes It wasn't like a deep, deep introduction, but I remember being in the car on my way to school when they announced on the local radio that Fantasia would be doing it on Broadway. I had no idea what this show was, but I just loved her from American Idol, so that's how I first was introduced to it. Then of course I went to school to study musical theater, so then I was just like looking at it from an educational standpoint and just learning the history of it. It's something I always wanted to do. Theatre has my heart. I will always find a place for it, hopefully in my schedule and in my career. I left the Lion King in 2018, with the belief that I was actually going to go into writing for television first. Interesting. I was a swing. I just knew the show so well that they would just put me back and forth between the tour and Broadway, tour and Broadway, tour and Broadway. I did that for a couple years up until the pandemic. It's something I definitely had to learn. My instinct being a theater performer is like arms out, head up, into the last person in the balcony and try to connect with them. I had to be very clear about the movement because the camera picks up everything. I had to learn how to find like an intimate connection with an inanimate object. It was a trip. Not even a connection with the object, you don't look at the camera. My instinct was at least to have my eye focus on something where you're looking either above or to the side or you're connecting with your scene partner but I'm also trying to cheat out all the time. I think on stage, you embody the character in a way that like 3,000 people can see it. Especially something like Lion King, the puppets are the main event in that show, and that's drilled into us that we are a vessel for the creative vision of the show, which is, I think, what makes it very beautiful, and we really bring the puppets to life. I think what it did is it gave me permission to rely on the actual elements. On stage, half the time you and the cast are creating the stage and the scenery and the setting. You have to ask the audience to go on a journey with you and imagine what is around. In The Lion King, we're not in an actual savanna. There's no dirt on stage. We're asking them to believe that we are the animals. With this, everything was there for me. Interview: Phylicia Pearl Mpasi on Going From THE LION KING to THE COLOR PURPLE;By Michael Major on Dec. 21, 2023 External links Category:Actresses from Maryland Category:Living people Category:1993 births Category:Women singers from the United States Category:Women born in the 1990s Category:African Americans