Lion was born in
Baltimore,
Maryland, the daughter of Gloria (Amburgh) and Albert Lion, whose company Lion Brothers produced embroidered emblems. She was of German Jewish heritage. She graduated from George Washington University. She worked for Senators Daniel B. Brewster of Maryland and Robert F. Kennedy before becoming a teacher at the Town School in New York. The musical was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won three. It ran for 569 performances. and
Perestroika followed by the 1995 production of
Seven Guitars.
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches won the 1993
Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 1997, Lion produced
Triumph of Love, based on a 1732 comedy by Pierre de Marivaux. It closed after 85 performances. She recruited
Marc Shaiman, a Hollywood film composer, for the musical's score. Four years later, in August 2002, the musical
Hairspray premiered on Broadway and became an immediate commercial and critical hit. Following
Hairspray, Lion produced the Broadway productions
Caroline, or Change (2004),
The Wedding Singer (2006), and
Radio Golf (2007) as well as
Harlem Song at The Apollo. Lion also garnered a
Tony Award for
Elaine Stritch at Liberty. as well as musical adaptations of
Mira Nair's
Monsoon Wedding, and
Like Water for Chocolate. Lion was an adjunct professor at the
Tisch School of the Arts of
New York University. She also served as Co-Chair to President Barack Obama's Arts Policy Committee during the 2008 Presidential Election and was appointed in 2009 as Co-Chair of President's Committee on the Humanities and the Arts. She died on January 24, 2020, in Manhattan after a brain aneurysm. She was 75 years old. ==References==