‘Hamilton’ and ‘Beetlejuice’ Scenic Designer David Korins Opens Exhibition in Arizona

David Korins, the scenic designer behind “Hamilton,” “Beetlejuice” and “Dear Evan Hansen,” is headed to Tucson, Ariz., with a new exhibition titled “Stages of Imagination: The Iconic Broadway Designs of David Korins.”

The exhibition, which opens this weekend at the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures, will run through May 31, 2025, and invites visitors on an immersive journey through Korins’ work.

Korins, who has worked on the Academy Awards, “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Here Lies Love,” “The Who’s Tommy” and more, was invited by the museum’s executive director William Russo to showcase his work.

“I said, I wanted to drill down deeper and look at five projects,” Korins tells Variety. “In looking at five projects, people will be able to see how they all look very different, and the outcome is very different, but they’ll be able to see similarities in the collaborative spirit and how people come together to make pieces.”

Korins chose five musicals: “Hamilton,” “Dear Evan Hansen, “Beetlejuice the Musical,” “The Who’s Tommy” and his most recent project, “Here Lies Love.”

In curating the exhibition, Korins conducted deep dives with the show’s directors, actors and writers. “There is no such thing as set design by David Korins. When you see ‘set design by David Korins,’ it’s hundreds of people coming together to make thousands of decisions,” he says. “The thing we all see as the final set of ‘Hamilton’ is many artists working together to make this extraordinary thing. What I like about the exhibition is that we pull back the curtain. We’re amplifying the voices of model makers, illustrators, craftspeople, builders and performers.”

The exhibition will feature original models, sketches, paint elevations and early ideas behind how Korins and the artisans work behind the scenes to transform the pages of a script into a grand Broadway production.

Among the items on show are Korins’ notes from “Hamilton.” “Back then, it was the ‘Hamilton Mixtape.’ I read the play and made all these little notes. I brought them into the interview, and those little things became the set which became the platform for that show to happen,” Korins says. “My original sketch for ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ is there. That’s the one that [director] Michael Greif unfolded put his finger on and said ‘That’s the one I want to explore.’ That set went all over the world and won the Tony and Olivier awards.'”

Korins hopes the miniatures will inspire audiences, explaining, “These models are tools for communication, and they are tools that we use in the rehearsal rooms to tell some of the most important thematic stories of a generation. Encapsulated in those five shows are trauma, love, marriage, uprising, revolution and death. They’re all extraordinarily big stories that were launched from these little, tiny environments.”

As part of the exhibition, Korins will also be in residency for several weeks, conducting master classes, design workshops and symposia for the public and design students.