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    hamilton is here

    Hamilton finally opens in Houston — here's what to know about Broadway's most revolutionary show

    Tarra Gaines
    Apr 23, 2018 | 10:00 am

    Ladies and gentlemen, the hottest phenomenon on the stage, Hamilton, is here. While it's taken more than a year to arrive, the hottest Broadway ticket finally settles in Houston on April 24, making the Hobby Center its home for almost a month (through May 20).

     

    CultureMap caught up with Houstonian and Hamilton insider, cast member Dorcas Leung. Excited to help bring the Tony Award-winning show to her hometown, Leung, a Broadway and television veteran, was happy to give us the scoop of what we should know before seeing the show.

     

    As a standby performer, Leung must always be ready to go on for any of the major female roles, Angelica Schuyler, Eliza Hamilton, and Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds, when the principle cast member needs to bows out. Sometimes Leung knows a month in advance she’ll jump into character on a given night; sometimes she has to make an entrance with as little as half an hour notice. Yet Leung says she’s living her dream and enjoys the acting challenge of having to know so many parts.

     

    Leung gives some of the credit to her love of musical theater to growing up in Houston, going on theater field trips as a child and then participating in high school performing arts programs. In fact, this won’t be Leung’s first time on a Hobby Center stage. She was last lit by Hobby lights several years ago competing in the Theatre Under the Stars Tommy Tune Awards with her Stratford High School classmates in Damn Yankees, and yes they won best musical.

     

    “I’m so excited to go back and do a professional show in that setting,” says Leung of this Houston to Broadway and back journey. “I remember being in high school and being in awe when I looked around backstage and saw all the wall texts of different shows that had been there. It’s bizarre for me that I’m going to be in the show that’s there.”

     

    Our expert advisor offers up the Hamilton dish, even spilling some revolutionary tea on backstage secrets, to get you ready to join the musical revolution.

     

     The hip-hop of Hamilton 
    If you’ve heard all the well-deserved acclaim, but kept yourself mostly spoiler free, Leung says be prepared for a musical unlike any other.

     

    “I think what people are most surprised by is the sheer amount of music and how hip-hop and pop-based the score is,” describes Leung. “From the moments you sit down, and hear those first beats, you’ll say: Oh, I’m at a concert. You’re not sitting down for a normal musical; you’re sitting down for an experience, a storytelling experience with hip-hop and pop music involved.”

     

     Live theater is never the same twice
    For those who already have the Grammy-winning cast album memorized, or even the lucky Texans who might have seen the show in New York, Leung says Hamilton offer revelations every night.

     

    “I think as an audience member even if you’ve heard the the album backwards and forwards, it’s not exactly what you’ve been hearing every day. That’s exciting because this is a piece of art that’s fluid. So many people can do the roles in different ways and you still get a powerful story.”

     

     All about the history
    The musical tells the life story of founding father Alexander Hamilton and depicts the American Revolution with a driving beat. Yet, it also dives into the politics of the creation of the First Bank of the United States and why our national capitol sits on the Potomac instead of the Hudson, making remote historical fact into relevant and even relatable theater.

     

    Leung reveals that as part of the rehearsal process all the actors receive history packets and are expected to do their own research and maybe some self-assigned homework. She calls Ron Chernow’s book that inspired the musical “riveting.”

     

    “The show humanizes what we think of as these towering old white men,” describes Leung. “It humanizes them, showing them as they were: young, revolutionaries causing a ruckus in this new country. It also shows their scandals, how they fell in love and become fathers. It puts modern people in touch with our history.”

     

     The Revolution is growing
    As a standby, Leung is part of a second cast ready to go on at a moment’s notice, but she’s also a part of a huge and now international Hamilton family.

     

    “Everyone in Hamilton is HamFam,” she says.

     

    Besides the New York show, which is still difficult to get a ticket for, Chicago has its own long-term production and now so does London. Most important for the rest of us, two Hamilton casts tour the nation, named the Philip cast and the Angelica cast. Having two tours allows the production to spend more time in any one city, giving more people the opportunity see the show.

     

    “Being able to sit down in these cities that may not have the opportunity to see Hamilton is not only a present to the city but also a present to us because every show we do is so unique and special, and we’re excited to share that with the rest of the city,” explains Leung.

     

    While the main cast and its large standby cast is enormous, even the set, with a revolving stage within a larger revolving stage and four sets of stairs, has its own backup. There are actually four sets roaming the country right now, two for each touring production. Because it takes so long to assemble, the two stages leap frog each other, only stopping at every other city.

     

     All in the HamFam
    With so many Alexander Hamiltons, George Washingtons, Angelica Schuylers, and Marquis de Lafayettes running around the U.S. and now England, you might think there would be a bit of good-natured acting competition, but Leung says no. Everyone is supportive of each other. In fact, the first national tour sent out video congratulations to the second touring cast, when the names were announced.

     

    “It’s quite amazing that we have so many companies that are able to relate to us and know the process that we also go through. They share the joy of being able share the story with other people too. That’s pretty fun.”

     

    ---

     

     Tickets to Hamilton are still available for select shows. Ham fans can also try the ticket lottery, which releases 32 tickets for $10 per performance. For details check the official Hamilton lottery registration.

    Houstonians are rightfully clamoring for tickets to Hamilton, which runs through May 20.

    Chris De'Sean Lee and cast of Hamilton, Chicago company
      
    Photo by Joan Marcus
    Houstonians are rightfully clamoring for tickets to Hamilton, which runs through May 20.
    theatermusic
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    series/todaytix-houston

    Best July Art

    Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

    Tarra Gaines
    Jul 9, 2025 | 4:30 pm
    ​Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
    Photo courtesy of Artechouse
    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"

    Art blooms in our world class museums but also on our city streets this July. From exhibitions featuring traditional paintings and sculptures to high tech immersive and interactive shows, we’re weaving art into the best of summertime fun and dreaming up beautiful new artistic creations all over Houston.

    “Town Meeting 1978-2028” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Pioneering Houston-based interdisciplinary artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin continue their decades-long project to create new and sometimes monumental artworks in response to little-known pre-Stonewall queer histories. For this latest exhibition, the duo explore a more recent and influential piece of Houston history, “Town Meeting I,” the pivotal convening of 4,000 LGBTQIA+ Houstonians at the Astro Arena in 1978. For this show at Art League, they’ve used their “wind drawing” technique of stenciling unfixed charcoal powder on paper and blowing it away, leaving a ghost-image. Using archival images of “Town Meeting I” as the bases of their stenciling, the finished “wind drawings” highlight the ephemerality, beauty, and loss of queer histories. In addition to these new works, Vaughan and Margolin hope to inspire, facilitate, and develop programming in 2028 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Town Meeting 1.”

    “Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé (Fragments of a Dream I Also Dreamed)" at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    “Every house is a body, and every individual body is a house full of memories and hopes,” says award-winning Venezuela born, Chicago-based artist, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, of her artistic focus. Molina’s fragmented, layered, and figural compositions explore that idea of home and memories. Delving into memories and stories, these figurative compositions, depicting people and relationships, fluctuate between stories of the present, past, and future. Taken together, the works in “Fragmentos de un sueño” aim to visually capture the feelings of vulnerability, nostalgia, and hope embedded in the experience of many immigrants. Art League notes that Molina’s pieces emphasize optimism over hardship, specifically addressing the longing for a home that no longer exists while striving to create a new one.

    “Every Fiber of Their Bodies” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Working with natural fibers such as linen, paper collage, and hand-spun paper yarn made from calligraphy paper and book pages, textile artist Lin Qiqing weaves stories ofhuman relationships, gender, immigration, and language. As the title hints, the labor-intensive weaving process brings thematic depth to the images of bodies depicted in the pieces. The woven pieces also make connections to the natural world, as when Lin crumples then smooths handmade mulberry paper to resemble human skin, or when she uses handwoven fiber to mimic the body’s movement. Lin process includes research and experimenting with natural materials to explore themes of the internal human struggle for existence and our interactions with the world around us.

    “Annual Juried Exhibition” at Archway Gallery (now through July 31)
    For the 17th year, the artist owned Archway Gallery celebrates Houston artists with its juried exhibition of area artists who are not members of the space. This year’s exhibition is juried by Project Row Houses founder and MacArthur "genius" fellow, Rick Lowe. The acclaimed artist and social activist has selected work from over 35 area artists representing a diversity of medium and styles. Sales from the exhibition will go to Houston’s Brave Little Company, the theater company for Houston’s kids and their gown ups.

    “Foyer Installation: René Magritte” at Menil Collection (now through August 3)
    After a critically acclaimed trip to Australia, some of our favorite Belgian-born Houstonians are back home. Yes, the Magritte paintings have returned to the Menil Collection after taking a star turn in a monumental Magritte retrospective at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now the Menil is celebrating their return with a special installation in the main building foyer. The Menil Collection owns the largest collection of work by René Magritte outside the artist’s native Belgium, and this display focuses on a core group of paintings from the 1950s and ’60s that truly represent Magritte’s status as a master creator of impossible painted worlds and an icon of the Surrealist movement. The paintings were purchased within a couple years of their making by the museum’s founders, John and Dominique de Menil. They represent and important part of 20th century art history, as the de Menils became Magritte’s biggest champions in the United States, helping to shape the artist’s reception and reputation in the postwar American art world. Stop by to welcome them home and slip into their enigmatic wonder.

    “Blooming Wonders” at Artechouse (now through September)
    The latest immersive exhibition from the Houston venue that brings art, science, and technology home together, Artechouse, lets the flowers blossom. The exhibition contains several dynamic installations, including “Timeless Butterflies,” a 270 degrees projection space that puts visitors in the middle of a butterfly cloud. Audiences journey with a flock of butterflies into an immense garden of flowers. Another immersive piece, “Infinite Blooms” takes audiences on a journey through an endless digital forest of cherry blossoms. The installation, “Akousmaflore et Lux” creates a very different type of garden where plants transform into musical instruments. “Clay Pillar” by Interactive Items / Vadim Mirgorodskii invites visitors to sculpt new forms using clay and a little help from an AI program. Note that “Blooming Wonders” runs simultaneously with the rock ‘n’ roll exhibition, “Amplified” with “Wonders” open during the daytime.

    “Weci | Koninut” at Avenida Houston (now through September 1)
    Houston is a place for big dreams, and this wondrous outdoor exhibition near George R. Brown Convention Center gives us the space to do so. Created by First Nations artists Julie-Christina Picher and Dave Jenniss, this interactive installation weaves together visual arts, Indigenous storytelling and sensory technologies in the form of six immense sculptural dreamcatchers. Each of these dreamcatchers are unique and represent one of the six seasons from the Atikamekw culture, an Indigenous people in Canada. Activated by people passing by, the dreamcatchers come to life with lights, sounds, and story, making the whole installation truly interactive. “Weci | Koninut” creators say that they want the installation to offer a total immersion experience for visitors, to create a moment where nature and dreams converge. Each piece offers a place for the public to slow down, sit, reflect, and yes, dream.

    New Murals in the East End and Midtown (ongoing)
    We could spend days viewing all the new murals painted across town, just in the last few years. But in honor of summer outdoor art viewing, we thought we’d spotlight two noteworthy new additions to our city-wide gallery of murals. As part of his major exhibition last spring at the CAMH, Vincent Valdez worked with San Antonio muralist Rubio and local students to create “Memoria, Memory.” Dedicated to his mother Theresa Santana Valdez (1947–2020), the vivid mural on historic Navigation Boulevard features her favorite bird and flower. Over in Midtown, check out “Stellar Illumination,” the latest installation in the city’s Big Walls Big Dreams mural series. Created by Robin Munro, also known as Dread, the seven stories high “Illumination” depicts a celestial scene of an astronaut gazing at Earth from space.

    “The Weight of Place” at Anya Tish Gallery (July 11-August 23)
    This group exhibition will explore themes of memory and the emotional, psychological, and physical landscapes memories can evoke. The will showcase three contemporary Texas-based female artists: Megan Harrison, Marisol Valencia, and Lillian Warren. While these artists work in different mediums–including large-scale paintings, mixed media works, and elegant porcelain sculptures–they are inspired by personal reflection and nature to create artworks that reflect on the ways we hold onto the past through sensory experience.

    “In Residence: 18th Edition” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (July 12-June 27, 2026)
    This annual exhibition celebrating the Center’s Artist Residency Program reaches it’s big 18th anniversary. Over the many years, the residency program has supported so many emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media. The program gives them a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with other artists, arts professionals, and the public. Now arts and craft lovers will get a chance to see the culmination of that work with this exhibition featuring pieces in fiber, clay, copper, and found objects by 2024-2025 resident artists Prerata Bradley, Stephanie Bursese, Atisha Fordyce, Nela Garzón, Gbenga Komolafe, Gabo Martinez, Preetika Rajgariah, Macon Reed, Jamie Sterling Pitt, Adam Whitney, and Dongyi Wu.

    “My Texas” at Our Texas Cultural Center (July 27-August 22)
    Award winning, Russian-born photographer, Anatoliy Kosterev, chronicles his personal exploration of Texas with photographs he took around the Lone Star State. The photos offer extraordinary views of Texas, from our dynamic cities to dramatic and sometimes lonesome landscapes. Kosterev’s photographic style blends science and technology with an artistic eye. He puts those two perspectives into practice when documenting all facets of life in Texas. Using HDR, drone imaging, macro photography, and traditional camera methods, he captures a diversity of subjects from quiet human moments to vast landscapes to delicate close-ups of insects and flowers.

    \u200bArtechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
      

    Photo courtesy of Artechouse

    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds."

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