Iconic Broadway stages from 'Hamilton' and 'Beetlejuice' are now in miniature form in Tucson

Mini Broadway stages are taking over Tucson’s Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures this fall.

The museum, 4455 E. Camp Lowell Drive, is exhibiting “Stages of Imagination: The Iconic Broadway Designs of David Korins” now through May 2025. The temporary exhibition showcases stage designs from process to performance and explores the collaborations that led to hit shows “Hamilton,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Beetlejuice,” “Here Lies Love” and “The Who’s Tommy.”

“It’s huge for us,” said William Russo, executive director of the museum. “We’re putting it in double the space that we normally have for exhibits of that nature, the ones that are a limited engagement, and it’s being built just for us. This exhibit didn’t exist before.”

Russo served as the managing director at Arizona Theatre Company for five years until he became executive director for the museum in May 2023. Before moving to Arizona, Russo worked in the Broadway and off-Broadway world of New York from 1997 to 2013. He was the general manager at Playwrights Horizons and the managing director at the New York Theater Workshop, where the musical “Rent” started.

“That’s actually where I worked first with David Korins. He was the designer on five shows we did together,” Russo said. “When I was interviewing for this role, I started to think about what I wanted to bring — my first big exhibit. And I had this idea because David’s work starts with the scale set models. So, I called him up and I said, ‘What do you think?’ and he’s like, ‘I think that sounds great.’ So that’s how this was born.”

The exhibit will feature first sketches, cardboard models, intricate scale models and exclusive interviews with some of the award-winning artist’s collaborators including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Phillipa Soo, Lea Salonga, Ben Platt and more.

“There’s a surprise at the end where we want to play with scale, so you’ll see the ‘Beetlejuice’ couch go from a miniature idea to the full-size replica. That’ll be a photo-op where you can have your photo taken on that couch,” Russo said.

With decades of experience in the entertainment industry’s different verticals, Korins says he is bringing Tucson a look at the behind-the-scenes world of Broadway that’s often overlooked.

“My hope for this thing is that people who enjoy entertainment come and see this exhibition, and they learn much more about pulling back the curtain,” Korins said. “People have no idea what goes into the making of a design and the making of a show — the intellectual rigor, the artistic rigor.”

The designer says it has been incredibly difficult to mimic the full-sized stages to exact-scale models, but his team at Korins Studio has helped him to chronicle a 15-year timeline of the development of these five stages.

“I wanted to make this a celebration for the collaborations, both in my studio, and the collaborations of the creative team who put together these shows,” Korins said.

Korins planned to be in Tucson for the first few weeks of September to celebrate the grand opening of the exhibition and to serve as a resource for the local artist scene.

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“I plan to keep my calendar pretty open to primarily serve the community,” Korins said. “And I’m excited to be bringing this to Tucson.”

The museum’s executive director hopes this exhibit will bring theater fans and visitors who might not otherwise come in.

“I’m hoping that maybe we will garner some new, long-term relationships with some of those people,” Russo said. He says the museum gets an annual attendance of about 45,000 visitors per year, but hopes that larger exhibits like this could grow those numbers.

“I’m excited to mix my past career and my new one together,” Russo said. “What I really want to do is raise this museum to the level of the arts and culture institutions that are part of people’s social life.”

The Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Admission is $14 for adults, $8 for kids ages 4-17 and free for children ages 3 and under. Discounts are available for seniors, college students and military.

Get in on the action

For locals looking to craft their own miniatures, the museum has also started  hosting “Mini Master Classes” at the newly renovated Artist Guest House. Artists can use the space as a retreat, partake in creative sessions and make conversation with creatives at the top of the field.

“It’s a little piece of Tucson that people really don’t know exists right behind the wall,” Russo said. “It’s a little oasis.”

Upcoming “Mini Master Classes” include:

• Magical Festive Cart: Oct. 5-6; cost: $220
• The Convent of St. Teresa: Nov. 9-10; cost: $240

Find more information here.