Searching for Beefcake in "The Jungle Book Musical"

The Jungle Book Musical has a slightly different plot from the 1967 Disney movie: feral child Mowgli and his panther friend Bagheera flee from the tyrannical despot Shere Khan.  They meet allies and enemies: Baloo the Bear, the seductive snake Kaa, and the gibbering Monkey King.  Amassing their forces, they defeat Shere Khan, and restore freedom to the jungle.  Then  Mowgli follows a Little Girl to the Man-Village, his heterosexual desire pushing him into becoming a man.

 Depressingly heterosexist.

And Mowgli is no Tarzan: he's a scrawny ten-year old boy.

But he's not always played by a scrawny ten-year old boy..

 Here the grown-up and buffed Tom Boss plays Mowgli at the community theater in the gay resort town of Orono, Maine.

At the King Street Theater in Sidney, Australia, a hunkoid with the amazing name Badaidilaga Maftuh-flynn plays the jungle waif.

At the Rose Theater in Omaha, we find 25 year old thespian Aaron Ellis.  One only wishes that the scanty loincloth would ride up a bit.


















This production is at the Oak Grove Theater in Edinburgh.  I don't know who this Mowgli is.  I think that's Bagheera behind him.

Another unknown Mowgli from a production in Amsterdam.  At least he looks South Asian.

Buffed monkeys from the production at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.

At the famous Metta Theater in Britain, Mowgli becomes a girl, and the jungle is re-envisioned as a hip-hop urban wasteland.  Bagheera is a graffiti artist, Baloo a beat-box bohemian, and Shere Khan (Dean Stewart) a crime boss who struts his stuff shirtless.

See also: The Jonas Brothers