The Lion King stars roar on Code Black

The CBS medical drama Code Black gets a dose of Broadway magic this week when cast members from The Lion King — and one memorable Mufasa — end up in the emergency room.

Alton Fitzgerald White, who has played Simba’s father in the musical more than a record-breaking 4,000 times, came out of The Lion King retirement to appear on Wednesday’s episode of the series starring Marcia Gay Harden. The show also airs on CTV in Canada.

“To be a part of the two worlds colliding? Incredible. It was like, ‘Wow,’ ” said White, who was flown from New York to Los Angeles to film the show. “This is such a beautiful cap to my Lion King experience.”

In the episode, titled The Son Rises, White plays an actor who portrays Mufasa in a touring version of the Disney musical. He arrives at Angels Memorial hospital with a nasty throat infection.

A handful of fellow cast members — picked from the real touring production of The Lion King — come to his bedside to pray he’ll pull through and be able to sing again.

That storyline is fused with another about a boy and his father. Soon the performers of The Lion King are belting out a powerful version of He Lives in You. Harden said the theatre pros transformed the filming process.

“When they came on set, they had that energy of harmony and synchronicity,” she said. “When they started singing, it was electric. It was transforming. It was beautiful.”

Michael Seitzman, the show’s creator and writer, came up with the idea a few years ago after watching a viral video on YouTube. In it, performers from The Lion King were stranded at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport and sang to pass the time. Filming the episode took two weeks in mid- October and climaxed in a moving finale that took 20 takes but left many of the 150 extras and regulars in tears.

“People were crying. At one point I was at the monitor and I turned around and I realized how many people had gathered behind me to watch it,” said Seitzman.

For White, who has played Mufasa on tour, in Las Vegas from 2009 to 2011, and on Broadway, it was a career highlight. “I didn’t have to do too much research — only 13 years of preparation,” he said, laughing.