Behind the Scenes: Theater Photography
Posted by Adam Immerwahr on March 31st, 2010
If you’ve ever seen any of McCarter’s marketing materials, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the incisive and revelatory photographs that somehow capture the heart of our productions. Those photos—which we feature on our website, our brochures, our mailings, and throughout the theater—are almost all taken by one man, photographer T. Charles Erickson. Charlie has been the theater’s primary photographer for the last 20 seasons, and by this point even our administrative hallways are peppered with hundreds of his photos.
American Theatre Wing’s “In the Wings” program recently featured Charlie in the short video above—it’s a great-behind-the-scenes-glimpse of this often invisible part of the theatrical ecology. I’m always fascinated by production photographs because our art form is inherently ephemeral. Over time, the memories of a production become hazy, the details fade. The photographs, however, live on—permanently capturing a moment, a glance, a theatrical effect. I wonder that gradually they don’t begin to replace the actual memory of the show, or rather to bolster up the memory of the moment captured, while the other moments slip away. What does that mean for the moments that we’ve chosen to capture, or the images we’ve allowed to be lost? How will our directors, actors, lighting designers, and productions be remembered but by the work of Charlie and his compatriots? If you’ve never thought about this stuff before, I urge you to watch this video. And please feel free to post a comment below to share your thoughts—do you notice production photographs, and do they change your behavior?
Rebecca Brooksher and Veanne Cox in Twelfth Night. Photo by T.Charles Erickson |
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