University of North Texas 
Fine Arts Series
Lucas Grabeel
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Lecture/Q&A | 7:30pm | UNT Union Lyceum
Tickets available at UNTuniontickets.com
FREE with UNT student ID
Lucas Grabeel began his professional acting career in 2003 after moving to California from Springfield, Missouri. Shortly after, Grabeel was cast as Ryan Evans in Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” trilogy. The success of the film franchise led to two rock concert tours across North and South America, where Grabeel served as emcee for the entire HSM cast.
Some of his other film credits include the Academy Award-winning film “Milk,” “Virginia,” “Little Women,” and “College Road Trip.”
In addition to his time on the big screen, Grabeel has appeared on TV shows including “Smallville”, “Veronica Mars”, “CSI”, and starred in Freeform’s hit series “Switched at Birth.” More recently, Grabeel has made cameo appearances in Disney+ “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series”.
For over 15 years, Grabeel has worked in animation, lending his voice to shows that include “Family Guy,” “Sheriff Callie's Wild West,” “Pinky Malinky,” “Robot Chicken,” “Phineas and Ferb,” “Elena of Avalor,” “Cleopatra in Space,” “Spirit Riding Free,” “The Cleveland Show,” and many more.
Grabeel has been writing original music for over two decades, some of which have appeared in various television shows and feature films, including the “High School Musical” franchise itself.
Simon Jimenez
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Moderated Conversation/Book Signing | 7:00pm | UNT Union Lyceum
Tickets available at UNTuniontickets.com
FREE with UNT student ID
Simon Jimenez is a Filipino-American writer of speculative fiction. Jimenez’s work has been critically well-regarded, his debut novel, The Vanished Birds, being nominated for the 2021 Locus Award for Best First Novel and the 2021 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and his sophomore effort, The Spear Cuts Through Water, winning the British Fantasy Award and the IAFA Crawford. Jimenez himself was nominated for the 2021 Astounding Award for Best New Writer.
Septura
Sunday, October 26
Music Performance | 7:30pm | Murchison Performing Arts Center
Tickets: Septura Tickets
FREE with UNT Student ID
Septura brings together London’s leading players to redefine brass chamber music through the uniquely expressive sound of the brass septet.
Septura was born out of a passion for the awe-inspiring sound of brass instruments. The ensemble’s creation – the brass septet – is uniquely vibrant and versatile, and Septura aims to harness its intense emotional power to produce transformative musical experiences for audiences. In short, it is pioneering a simple message: music sounds better on brass.
To fulfil its mission Septura has brought together the very best brass players in the UK – holding principal positions in the Royal Philharmonic, London Symphony, BBC Symphony and Philharmonia orchestras – and with their unparalleled skill and virtuosity the ensemble has forged a chamber group described as “dazzlingly polished” (BBC Music Magazine), and now firmly established as one of the best in the world.
Artistic Directors, Simon Cox and Matthew Knight, are two of the most preeminent and prolific arrangers for brass, and together they have created a diverse counterfactual canon: re-imagining great music of the past for brass, and addressing historical imbalances by putting a spotlight on under-represented composers. Looking to the future, Septura is commissioning leading composers such as Roxanna Panufnik to create a rich repertoire of original music for brass septet.
Grace McLean
Thursday, January 29, 2026
Virtual Performance/Q&A | 7:00pm | UNT Senate Chambers, 332 & Zoom
Zoom Link
FREE with UNT student ID
Grace McLean (she/her) is a performer, writer, composer. Broadway: Suffs, Bad Cinderella; Natasha, Pierre.... Off-Broadway and Regional include New Group, MCC, LCT3, The Public, Vineyard, La MaMa, BAM, Weston Playhouse, ART, WTF. TV: The First Lady (Showtime), The Other Two (HBOMax). She writes and composes for theater (LUNAR ECLIPSE; THE APIARY; IN THE GREEN, Richard Rodgers, Lortel Awards) and film (Shayna Strype's OUR MINE, Best Score Brooklyn Film Festival, Black Bear Award for Best Score Athens International Film Festival). Lincoln Center Writer-in-residence, Vivace Award ('23), Larson Grant ('21), Broadway Women’s Fund’s Woman to Watch (‘21), Civilians R&D Group (‘19-’20), MacDowell Fellow (‘18), Lincoln Center Emerging Artist (‘17). Her debut album, My Lovely Enemy, was called "brilliant" by Rolling Stone.
Social Movement Contemporary Dance Theatre
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Dance Performance | 6:30pm | University Theatre
FREE with UNT student ID | No tickets required
Social Movement Contemporary Dance Theater (SMCDT) is a performing arts organization that uses dance arts as a form of social commentary. We fulfill this by performing original work, providing educational opportunities, and collaborating with artists and organizations to explore cultural narratives and embody the full spectrum of human experience.
Social Movement Contemporary Dance Theater was founded under the Artistic Directorship of Elijah Alhadji Gibson in 2019. Elijah Alhadji Gibson, dance educator, choreographer, and activist founded Social Movement Contemporary Dance Theater in 2019. He holds an international career as a professional dancer, teacher, and choreographer and a long-standing career in Higher Education.
Originally from San Diego, California, he began dancing with the San Diego Civic Dance Association and attended the San Diego School for the Performing Arts. Gibson studied dance in college and later earned his Master of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, focusing on dance history, somatic studies, and pedagogy.
Lev Manovich
Thursday, April 23, 2026
Artist Lecture/Q&A | 7:00pm | Union Senate Chambers (332)
No tickets required
Dr. Lev Manovich is a Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). He is widely recognized as a pioneering thinker whose influential work in digital art, new media, media theory, digital humanities, and visual culture continues to influence new generations of researchers. After studying painting, architecture, and filmmaking, Manovich began using computers to create digital art in 1984 and has been teaching practical art courses since 1992. He has played a key role in creating a number of new research fields: new media and digital culture (1991-), software studies (2001-), cultural analytics (2005–), and AI aesthetics (2017-). His writings include 200 articles that are widely cited across multiple disciplines, reprinted over 850 times in 40 languages. Among his 17 books are Artificial Aesthetics, Cultural Analytics, Instagram and Contemporary Image, Software Takes Command, and The Language of New Media, which has been called "the most provocative and comprehensive media history since Marshall McLuhan." Manovich's art projects have been exhibited in 14 solo and 124 international group exhibitions at many leading cultural institutions, such as the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Centre Pompidou, and the Shanghai Biennale.
