President Barack Obama has seen Hamilton three times, if you include an early version of what became the show's opening number at a White House event in 2009.
Even so, Maya Quetzali, 17, a senior at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, has him beat. She's seen it four times.
Dallas-Fort Worth fans are wild about the smash Broadway show with Tony Award buzz.
They've gone to incredible lengths and expense to obtain tickets to Lin-Manuel Miranda's multicultural hip-hop adaptation of Ron Chernow's 2005 biography of the visionary Founding Father.
Julie Hersh of Dallas won't admit what she spent, but says it's "four times the most" she has ever spent on tickets; it's in line with what she pays for Super Bowl tickets and "completely worth it."
Midlothian residents Sherry Hopkins and her husband paid $900 for resale tickets with no regrets. "I loved this show so much, I can't even tell you," she says. "We both felt we were witnessing history happen before our eyes, especially with the original cast."
Rachel O'Connor's parents paid $1,050 for two tickets for O'Connor, who had memorized the entire score, and her husband as an early 30th birthday present.
"I almost fainted after I stopped screaming and doing my happy dance," O'Connor says.
Heather Deitchman Biddle, theater head of J.J. Pearce High School, spent $240 each for herself and her 8-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, to see the show with her friend Jill Lord, artistic director of Ohlook Performing Arts Center in Grapevine, and Lord's daughters, Emma Lord, 18, and Grace Lord, 17.
"The craze lives up to everything people have to say," Biddle says. "Seeing the show inspired me as both a teacher and director. As an educator, Hamilton shows that no idea should be dismissed, nothing is too crazy to not try at least once.
'Hamilton proves that theater can take risks, that it's OK to dream, to dare to be different and to celebrate the storytelling,' says one superfan.
"Every morning my alarm wakes me up to a new song from the soundtrack, and the beat carries me on all day."
As for Maya, she had just finished a run as Nina in Miranda's first musical, In the Heights for Junior Players in January, 2015. Doing a musical that featured so many Latino actors was a revelation to her; she'd struck up a Twitter correspondence with Miranda and couldn't wait to see his next show.
Her parents took her to New York on President's Day weekend in February. It was weeks before her 17th birthday and the show was in its off-Broadway debut at the Public Theatre. The songs had not yet been recorded.
It was a wild evening. She waited with her parents in the snow for hours, tweeting Miranda to pass the time. Miranda showed up to give her a hug. She cried and told him it was the best day of her life. But when she reached the box office there was nothing left. She was told she could enter a lottery for tickets, but she lost. She was told she could put her name on a list for cancellations. She was third for two sets of tickets, but when the first two people didn't show up, her father happily paid $170 apiece for two tickets.
"It was amazing," Maya says. "I cried so many times. It was like no other musical that I've ever seen before."
She was on a flight to Los Angeles when the Broadway tickets went on sale. She ordered them while in the air, scoring a $60 seat for a preview and a $120 for a ticket after it opened a few days later in July. Once in New York for a 10-day stay, she entered the lottery and won a $10 ticket to catch it one more time before heading back to Dallas.
She listens to the songs every day and hopes to catch the show again, possibly when it opens in Chicago in September or when it goes on national tour in 2017. It gives her pride to see immigrants playing leaders of the country and it gives her hope to see roles that aren't stereotypes, she says.
'As a person of color, I don't see a lot of people on Broadway who look like me. Now it feels like a whole new world has opened up and I was there to see the revolution happen,' said a fan.
"It makes me feel that nothing is impossible. I cannot wait to see who else will get to play those roles -- maybe it will be me someday."
Plan your life
Ticket buyers are urged to be wary of scammers selling fraudulent tickets to Hamilton; buy through the box office at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th St., New York City; Ticketmaster, Ticketmaster Plus or broadway.com. A new block is on sale to American Express cardholders through Monday and to the public Tuesday for Nov. 1, 2016-Jan. 22, 2017. A lottery for $10 tickets starts 2 1/2 hours before each performance; submit name outside the theater for a chance to win. Names are drawn two hours before showtime. Cash only. Photo ID required. 1-877-250-2929. hamiltonbroadway.com.
