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Uncle Fatso looms behind a Bread and Puppet performance in New York. A version of the satirical puppet stands at the entrance to the McNay Art Museum exhibit \u201cA People\u2019s History.”<\/p>\n
Erik McGregor\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cHamilton\u201d<\/a> was on curator Remus Moore\u2019s wish list for a new McNay Art Museum exhibit exploring how theater artists deal with U.S. history, but they weren\u2019t sure they\u2019d be able to get the costume designs they wanted.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because designer\u00a0Paul Tazewell,<\/a> who won a Tony award for his work on the show, is currently the subject of a retrospective<\/a> at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Robert Yodice’s 1976 costume design for “Ellis Island” can be seen in “A People’s History: The American Experiment on Stage” at the McNay Art Museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n Robert L.B. Tobin Anna Louizos’ maquette for the 2009 national tour of “In the Heights” can be seen in “A People’s History: The American Experiment on Stage” at the\u00a0McNay Art Museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anna Louizos Paul Tazewell’s design for the costume for Bess for a 2005 production of “Porgy and Bess”\u00a0can be seen in “A People’s History: The American Experiment on Stage” at the\u00a0McNay Art Museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paul Tazewell Uncle Fatso, a giant puppet created by the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet theater company, stands at the entrance to “A People’s History: The American Experiment on Stage” at the McNay Art Museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chris Stolze\/Courtesy McNay Art Musseum Graphite sketches for four of Paul Tazewell’s Tony-winning costume designs for “Hamilton” are part of “A People’s History: The American Experiment Onstage” at the McNay Art Museum.<\/p>\n Chris Stolze\/Courtesy McNay Art Museum Some of Robert Indiana’s costume designs for the opera “The Mother of Us All” can be seen in “A People’s History: The American Experiment on Stage” at the McNay Art Museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chris Stolze\/Courtesy McNay Art Museum A giant puppet created by the Bread and Puppet political theater stands at the entrance to “A People’s History: The American Experiment Onstage” at the McNay Art Museum.<\/p>\n Chris Stolze\/Courtesy McNay Art Museum<\/p>\n Happily, it all worked out. Among the many treasures of the\u00a0McNay show \u2013 titled \u201cA People\u2019s History: The American Experiment on Stage\u201d \u2013 are four of Tazewell\u2019s detailed, delicate-looking graphite sketches. The quartet, grouped together on the back wall, feature looks he created for Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton\u2019s sister-in-law Peggy Schuyler.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really wonderful way to highlight such an important musical,\u201d said Moore, the museum’s Tobin Theatre Arts Fund assistant curator.<\/p>\n The exhibit<\/p>\n What: The\u00a0McNay Art Museum\u2019s contribution to the nation\u2019s 250th birthday celebration is \u201cA People\u2019s History: The American Experiment on Stage.\u201d The exhibit explores the way that the country\u2019s story has been told onstage via maquettes and set and costume designs from a broad range of shows, including \u201cHamilton,\u201d \u201cHair,\u201d \u201cThe Color Purple,\u201d \u201cIn the Heights\u201d and \u201cHairspray.\u201d<\/p>\n Details: Opens Thursday. Through Nov. 8,\u00a0McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels. Included with museum admission, $18 to $23 (discounts available), mcnayart.org.<\/a><\/p>\n The show<\/p>\n What: \u201cHamilton,\u201d\u00a0Lin-Manuel Miranda\u2019s blockbuster musical, is wrapping up its two-week\u00a0return to the Majestic Theatre this weekend. The show tells the story of the founding of the country through the life of Alexander Hamilton.<\/p>\n Details: 7:30\u00a0p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 1\u00a0p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday,\u00a0Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston. $80.73 to $331, us.atgtickets.com; $10 tickets are available via a digital lottery at hamiltonmusical.com.<\/a><\/p>\n ALSO SHOWING: Witte Museum’s ‘Adventures’ includes primitive cats, battles, ancient murals<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n As it happens, the exhibit is opening this week, just as \u201cHamilton\u201d is wrapping up its latest run at the Majestic Theatre.<\/a> So ticket-holders might want to hit the museum for a peek behind the scenes before they head downtown for the show.<\/p>\n \u201cA People\u2019s History\u201d can be found in the Lawson Print Gallery, where an enormous, eye-catching puppet dubbed Uncle Fatso stands at the entrance. The piece\u00a0\u2014 a representation of Uncle Sam with a cigar clenched in one fist and a red, white and blue top hat on his head\u00a0\u2014 comes from Bread and Puppet, <\/a>a 63-year-old political theater based on a farm in Vermont.<\/p>\n \u201cThey got their start in New York City and Washington, D.C., in the late 1960s as a protest theater,\u201d Moore said. \u201cSo they would do street parades with these huge puppets, protesting the Vietnam War, the war on drugs. Now they\u2019ve transitioned to a more permanent location in Vermont, but they do circuses every year with puppets this size.\u201d<\/p>\n The puppet is the ideal introduction to the show.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cThe idea behind this exhibit is looking at how artists have reacted to the past 250 years of American politics and how they\u2019ve put it onstage,\u201d Moore said. \u201cSo we have women\u2019s rights with \u2018The Mother of Us All,\u2019 a very famous opera. We have a couple of loans from Takeshi Kata<\/a> from \u2018Angels in America,\u2019 talking about the AIDS epidemic and queer rights; we have labor rights movement. We have all these different ways artists have taken what\u2019s happening around them, putting it on stage as a way for us to all really process it, reflect on it, all of that.<\/p>\n \u201cWith this being the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to sort of reflect on the last 250 years and see what we want for the next 250 years.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE AMERICAN HISTORY: \u201cTejano Legacy: Another American Origin Story\u201d opens at the Briscoe Western Art Museum<\/a><\/p>\n The exhibit features costume and set designs as well as production photos. There\u2019s also a soundtrack drawn from a slew of musicals and several\u00a0maquettes. There\u2019s one made by designer Don Hannon for a 1990 production of \u201cHair,\u201d the 1960s counter-culture musical. A few feet away, visitors can take a look at Anna Louizos\u2019<\/a> design for a 2009 tour of \u201cIn the Heights,\u201d the musical digging into gentrification and Puerto Rican identity that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote before \u201cHamilton.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Designer Dan\u00a0Hannon’s 1990 maquette for “Hair” — made of painted wood, metal, plastic and found objects — can be seen in “A People’s History: The American Experiment on Stage” at the McNay art Museum.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Dan Hannon<\/p>\n San Antonio\u2019s theater scene gets a little bit of a spotlight, too. A costume design that Margaret Mitchell created for \u201cWhere the Rivers Meet,\u201d a Carmen Tafolla play produced in 2015, is shown along with some fabric swatches for the piece. And two sketches of Javier Sanchez\u2019s set design for the San Pedro Playhouse\u2019s<\/a> 2025 production of \u201cHairspray\u201d are displayed beside photos from the show.<\/p>\n \u201cI really enjoy being able to bring in designs from our local artists,\u201d Moore said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really wonderful opportunity to show that not only is amazing theater happening on Broadway and in Washington, D.C., but it\u2019s also happening here in our backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n The show covers the entirety of the nation\u2019s 250 years. That includes a big first: \u201cThe Contrast,\u201d the first American play to receive a professional production, way back in 1787. The exhibit is showing Arch\u00a0Lauterer\u2019s patriotic-themed curtain designs for a 1947 production of the comedy.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201c ‘The Contrast\u2019 opens with a couple of poems,\u201d Moore said. \u201cOne of the first opening lines is, \u2018We go from the very lofty sir to the humble mister.’ So it\u2019s this really wonderful play talking about what it means to be American, just a few years after we become America.\u201d<\/p>\n The newest production featured in the exhibit is the 2025 staging of Nia Akilah Robinson’s<\/a> \u201cThe Great Privation (How to flip 10 cents into a dollar).\u201d Moore was able to get designer\u00a0Meghan Raham\u2019s<\/a> maquette for the Woolly Mammoth Theatre<\/a> in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n Moore caught that particular production. The play is set in a campground built on what had been a cemetery in 1806.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this interplay between racial tensions in the early 1800s and how bodies were used for medical experimentation and how racial tensions are still something to be puzzled over and how a lot of people of color feel very isolated from their heritage,\u201d Moore said. \u201cOne of the most striking parts about the production is this ground covering, which is about six inches of mulch. And so the entire theater was filled with this wet, woody smell the entire time. It was this really\u00a0wonderful, multi-sensory experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Those who peer closely into the\u00a0maquette may spot a tiny tree stump suspended over the set. Raham\u2019s fully realized design included the real deal: A stump that measured 12 feet in diameter.<\/p>\n Raham passed the stump often on her drive to work, and it captured her imagination, Moore said. Eventually, she went to the manager of the park where the stump stood and asked if she could have it for\u00a0the\u00a0show<\/p>\n \u201cAnd they\u2019re like, \u2018We\u2019re not moving it, but if you want it, have at it,\u2019\u201d they said. \u201cSo it is this amazing, gigantic tree stump suspended over the stage, lit with these blood red lights at points, or just party lights instead, depending on the vibe, because there is ghostly possession at one point. \u00a0It\u2019s creepy, but it\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The designer offered Moore the stump for the exhibit, but they had to say no: \u201cAt least we get this model version, and that is wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uncle Fatso looms behind a Bread and Puppet performance in New York. 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