Months ago when the tickets were purchased, I had a bit of a “meh, okay, if everyone else is interested, let’s do it” vibe about The Lion King production in Toronto.

With it being Mother’s Day weekend, we ended up doing dinner out before heading to the theatre. Due to all the timing concerns, we had to miss Toronto FC’s first home win of the year.

Alas, this is not a soccer column, but a piece about my surprisingly excellent experience at the Princess of Wales Theatre (part of the Mirvish Productions family).

There was a lot of energy on Saturday night in the city, and it was palpable in the theatre. Everyone seemed to ooze excitement.

At this point, my spirits were also lifting: it’s true that we can feed that positive energy off one another.

Before heading to our seats, we grabbed popcorn and water, snapped a few family pics and helped a couple by taking their photo. My fam, which in this instance included Grandma, asked me to not share our group shots in this piece.

The first surprise came when we kept walking down to the second row, centre stage for our seats (obviously I didn’t do the purchasing).

We did a little mingling and reading about the play, where I mentioned that I felt represented because an Italian-Canadian (Salvatore Antonio) was playing Scar – then joked that of course the Italian guy was cast as the bad guy in the play.

My wife just gave me the look. Then a few minutes later, I heard the two older ladies next to me say, “oh, that’s an Italian name for sure.” My wife just smile and nodded.

It came time for the show to begin – I reminded everyone to turn their phones off and then an announcer did as well.

When the show began, the colours, the sounds, the singing hits like a beautifully coordinated ton of bricks. I’m pretty sure I had an ear-to-ear smile as if I was a child looking at the world through wonderous eyes.

The costumes are incredible, the acting and singing just as good – and that includes the supporting roles, not only the main characters. From the moment the lady playing Rafiki (Zama Magudulela) comes on stage to the final bows, it was a familiar adventure with a few twists and humourous adlibs.

Since I want everyone to go see the show for themselves, I won’t go too in depth, but here are a few of my personal highlights.

Antonio’s portrayal of Scar really sucked the audience in. He was so good, there were even a few jeers after the final curtain as he took a bow. Imagine convincing everyone you really are that character – a live-action version of a lion – that’s some serious acting chops.

There are no heroes without top notch villains to give them a reason to be brave.

Magudulela made me forget that in the cartoons, Rafiki is a male character. She rocks that roll and brings a perfect mix as the pseudo-narrator of The Lion King.

The way they mixed in Zulu and Swahili for some of the songs and narration was fantastic.

The energy of the entire cast. You could just feel they were having a good time putting on this performance, even though it takes a lot of physical, mental, and emotional discipline to pull it off.

I could go on and on, but those are my personal highlights. I strongly recommend seeing this show if you haven’t yet. Check out more at The Lion King.