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Hamilton, princesses, and waitresses revolutionize the new Broadway series at Hobby Center

With a little over a month to go until Hamilton takes his first hip hop bow in Houston on April 24, Broadway at the Hobby Center is already looking to a beautiful musical future with its just announced 2018-2019 season.

The extensive lineup of seven shows and two season add-on brings to town beloved classics as well as some hot tickets still garnering raves on Broadway. There’s something for every type of musical theater lover on the calendar, so for a preview peek, here’s some trends and highlights we’re seeing for melodious nights ahead at the Hobby Center.

Everything old is new
The next season opens in late summer, with the acclaimed new production of a true musical phenomenon, Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Misérables (September 25-30, 2018). This re-imagined staging, with sets inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo, garnered praise and several Tony nominations.

Next spring, another revival of a beloved Mackintosh ’80s hit, the Madama Butterfly-inspired Miss Saigon lands (yes, helicopter included) on the Sarofim stage May 7-12, 2019. This new production, which just closed on Broadway in January, is said to have a renewed focus on the star-crossed love story of Kim and Chris, doomed to be torn apart by war.

Summer becomes the season of love as the 2018-2019 lineup ends (August 6-11, 2019) with a thoroughly American take on another Puccini opera, La Bohème. The 20th anniversary tour of Jonathan Larson’s Rent brings back to Houston the story of struggling artists living and loving through those five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred moments so dear.

Mmm...pie
In between all the returning favorites, the Tony Award winning freshly baked showWaitress brings an intimate feel-good and new love story to town (January 29-February 3, 2019). The hit musical is based on the Adrienne Shelly film about a woman taking life’s lemons and making delicious pie out of them. With music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles and book by screenwriter Jessie Nelson, The Waitress still charms audiences in New York. No word yet on if the touring show will continue the Broadway practice of actually baking pies before each performance, to set the olfactory mood.

The biggest surprise in the lineup might be The Play That Goes Wrong (March 26-31, 2019), which only debuted in New York in April 2017 and yet has become the little UK show that could (garner huge laughs on Broadway). I’m usually not a big fan of broad physical farce, but on a East Coast visit last May, I wandered into this production having heard little about it. By the end of the first act, it had become one of my favorite comedies of the year. What happens when great actors play really bad actors, scenic designers and a clueless playwright? Something so wrong it becomes a revelation of comedy as chaos.

Rub this Disney lamp
Said to be inspired by both the 1950s Ingrid Bergman film and the ’90s animated musical, the story of the lost possible-princess, Anastasia, made its Broadway debut last year with a book by acclaimed playwright Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Is Anya the last of the Romanovs or a just an amnesiac street sweeper, albeit with the voice of a fairytale princess? She joins two charming con artists on an adventure through 1920s Paris to find out, making a stop in Houston March 5-10, 2019.

Disney rubs its creative lamp and conjures up another beloved animated film on stage with Aladdin. Still a family favorite hit on Broadway, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and Chad Beguelin, the touring production will bring all the classic’s heroes and villains, and the real star of the story, Genie, to Houston for something of an extended summer stay, June 26-July 14, 2019.

Fun with Mormons
Broadway at the Hobby rounds out the lineup with two seasons options. For those who can’t get enough Cameron Mackintosh productions, The Phantom of the Opera will haunt Houston once more November 7-18, 2018. If irreverent singing Mormons are more your speed, The Book of Mormon opens its musical pages again January 15-20, 2019.

As an added incentive, Broadway at the Hobby Center also announced one show for its 2019-2020 season, the six Tony Awards winner, Dear Evan Hansen. Subscribers for the 2018-2019 Season will have first access to reserve their seats for Hansen when they renew their subscription for the 2019-2020 Season.

The company of Les Misérables sing for "One Day More."

$Broadway at Hobby Center-Les Mis\u00e9rables$

Photo by Matthew Murphy

The company of Les Misérables sing for "One Day More."

theater music

Hodge Podge

Houston artist bids farewell, for now, with career-spanning new exhibit

Courtesy of Robert Leroy Hodge/SANMAN Studios

The exhibit shows a range of the artist's works.

Artist Robert Leroy Hodge is saying goodbye to Houston – well, not exactly.

The Houston-born multidisciplinary artist recently debuted his latest exhibit, Diamonds That Fall from the Treetop, at SANMAN Studios. Known more for his eye-catching, pop-art collages (in 2023, he collaborated with Austin artist Tim Kerr for the No Kings But Us exhibit at Blaffer Art Museum), this mini-retrospective will feature selected works from his two-decade career – including the early stuff.

“A lot of kids think I only make collages,” Hodge tells CultureMap. “And, also, I'm not making collages anymore like that. So, it's like the end of an era. I show where I started with these portraits and real paintings and drawings and how I kind of got into collage. It's a wide range of things I do, not just collage.”

Diamonds will also be his last exhibit in Houston, but he’s not moving away. Hodge will cut down on doing local exhibits and focus more on getting his art and his name out there in other parts of the world. He’s out to prove that serious art can come out of this place.

“When I interact with politicians and people in higher positions, they treat local artists like they're secondary, they're not good enough,” he says. “[They say] ‘They're in Houston because they can't be in New York and LA,’ and that's not the case. I could be anywhere, and I chose Houston.”

But Hodge wants to be known as an artist from Houston, instead of just in Houston. “There’s nothing wrong with being a local artist in your city, but that’s not what I want,” he says. “I live here, but for me to get to the next space I wanna get to, I need to be showing more in New York, LA, out the country. And it's nothing personal – when you do a lot of stuff here, you just can't keep doing the same thing. You start to feel stagnant.”

As much as he loves both the city and its art scene, Hodge knows that the visual arts isn’t a high priority around here. “We are an oil-and-gas city,” he says. “And because that's the main way money is being made, arts and culture is not primary. And, then, the new mayor is not really into art. So, it's like it all depends on who loves art and who's in office.”

Within city limits, Hodge says he will be more of a curator and mentor, helping young artists and working with galleries and studios on creating showcases for those artists and others. He also wants to continue collaborating with fellow art enthusiasts of color, like the folks at SANMAN.

“I wanted to do it with SANMAN because it's owned by two young Black men,” he says. “They got a staff of Black creatives, and I wanted to really show cohesiveness between Black men.”

But Hodge isn’t completely hanging up the idea of doing another big solo show in his hometown. “This is the last one for a while,” he says, “unless the Menil calls or something crazy happens.”

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Diamonds That Fall will be on display through Saturday, July 26.

Courtesy of Robert Leroy Hodge/SANMAN Studios

The exhibit shows a range of the artist's works.

artists galleries visual-art interview