Best long-running show

Best long-running showThe Lion King

Photo © Joan Marcus

Winner The Lion King
Alluring, brilliant, beautiful—and that’s just the opening number. Designed and directed by Julie Taymor, the Tony Award–winning musical—an adaptation of Disney’s hit animated feature—is still a sight to behold after more than eight years at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre (the show moves to the Minskoff Theatre on June 13). We asked Taymor for her take on the musical’s resilience: “Perhaps the success of The Lion King is because it utilizes forms of theater that many audiences have never been exposed to before,” she suggested. Indeed. Taymor honed her craft with Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater, a legendary creator of spectacle, and in Indonesia, before going on to direct puppet- and mask-accented productions, including Oedipus Rex and The Tempest—definitely not kids’ shows, but notable for their visual stage magic. For The Lion King, she oversaw the creation of Simba shadow puppets, giant wildebeest masks, a Bunraku-style Timon puppet, and costuming that simulates the look and movement of sundry animals—along with a mind-boggling stage that becomes an enormous cliff, and scenery that turns from an elephant graveyard into the rolling Serengeti. Even jaded New York City kids, who think they’ve seen (and heard) it all, seem to agree that this show is a must.

New Amsterdam Theatre, 214 W 42nd Street at Seventh Ave (212-307-4747, disney.go.com/disneytheatrical/thelionking/)

Runner-up Blue Man Group
What started as East Village experimental performance in 1987 has become one of the coolest all-ages shows in town. It breaks the boundaries of the conventional theater experience in a production that’s loud, colorful and above all, messy.

Astor Place Theatre, 434 Lafayette St between Astor Pl and E 4th St (212-254-4370, blueman.com)

And don’t forget...Slava’s Snowshow
Born and trained in Russia, Slava Polunin draws from Europe’s darkly poetic and seriously anarchic clown tradition in this marvelous show. Combining subtle humor, ethereal special effects and a sensational indoor blizzard with an interactive, explosive finale (we won’t spoil the surprise) and minor assaults on audience members, Snowshow is just scary enough to be thrilling. It’ll certainly change your kid’s conception of clowns.

Union Square Theatre, 100 E 17th St between Park Ave South and Irving Pl (212-505-0700, snowshow.com)