Heralded as the most imaginative director and designer working in the performing arts today, Julie Taymor is the creative mastermind behind the spectacular Broadway production of The Lion King. She directed the play, designed the brilliantly colored costumes, wrote additional lyrics and co-designed the ingenious masks and puppets. Active in theater from an early age, she studied folklore and mythology at Oberlin College while pursuing her interests in ritual performance, masks and puppetry in Japan and Indonesia. The recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, Taymor is also the director of daringly imaginative major motion pictures, such as the critically acclaimed Frida, starring Salma Hayek. In this film biography, Taymor recreated the turbulent life and magical art of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Taymor has directed operas by Mozart, Wagner and Stravinsky in Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan as well as at the Metropolitan Opera. In 2006, she directed the world premiere of a new work, Grendel, at the Los Angeles Opera. Her latest film project Across the Universe, starring U2 front man Bono, uses the music of the Beatles to tell a story set in the 1960s. It is scheduled for release in December, 2006.
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