Why I love shooting theater

It dawned on me today, as my friend and coworker, Julie-Anne was talking about her experiences in theater as an actor.  She said, “The humanity comes from the actor.  The director can’t do that, the stage manager can’t do that, the designer and the sound can’t do that.  The actor humanizes it.”

That’s what I love.  I love capturing those moments when the actor is humanized, channeling the words and directions in the script in a way that defies what most of us are able to do with our bodies, minds and voices.  Similarly in music, when most people are bobbing to the beat, the musician is experiencing something completely different.  

As I am formerly – and formally – acquainted with performing, I know what this means.  Not to give too much trumpeting to myself, but I believe I can recognize it in others.  And those with whom I’ve worked in photography can likely attest to that.  

Fever Chart has opened at Central Square Theater, and will run through December 19th.  Starring a cast of Ken Baltin, Dan Shaked, Ibrahim Miari, Harry Hobbs, Miaria Silverman and Najla Said, this performance certainly gives us much to think about, in terms of humanity.  

I hope that the images I’ve pulled for you show such things.  

Preview – Fever Chart – Central Square Theater – Boston.com

Boston.com gives a nice preview of the just-started show at Central Square Theater.  

I’m not sure what they did to my photo, but there it is.  

There will be production photos soon, I promise!  I was up all night last night getting them uploaded for the theater, so it’s gonna take me a while to wade through them all!

Preview – Fever Chart – Central Square Theater

My tenure as resident photographer at Central Square Theater has finally come back around to being forefront (as much as I love the music gigs, the kinds of bands I run with can’t usually pay much). 

Later this month, CST will be presenting Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle EastI’m intrigued by this show, and based on the scene runs I saw yesterday, it should be great.  All the actors have great chemistry together, which is something I love to see when shooting three weeks out from the final dress. 

As per usual, we were in CST’s studio theater, which has notoriously bad lighting unless it’s set for a show.  I basically get house lights and canisters, and those aren’t flattering at all, ever, namely in the shadowed faces under the awkward spacing of lights.  I often deal with extremes in this space, because the lighting is so spotty.  Images are usually overexposed or underexposed, and if they’ve not got exposure issues, you’d best pray that you captured the right moment, cause that’s what you’ve got. 

Still, we did the best we could. 

Reviews – Hound of the Baskervilles – Central Square Theater

Ack – I’m behind again!

Reviews have come out for Hound of the Baskervilles, and I’ve just been to busy to post:

The Boston Phoenix

The Arts Fuse

Central Square Blog (ok, it’s a repost of the review from the Globe, but still!)

The Patriot Ledger

Broadway World

Hound of the Baskervilles plays through August 22 – and if you join the Central Square Theater Facebook Page, I’m fairly sure there are discount tickets available!

Review – Hound of the Baskervilles – Central Square Theater

Boston.com reviews the Hound of the Baskervilles!

It’s not necessarily my favorite version of that photo – as you can see, Trent (left) is shadowed by the frame and his hat, and the expressions on the boys aren’t quite concrete and cohesive.  You can tell this shot is a setup, rather than fluidly moving through a scene.   

Oh well.  It’s a credit!

Photos – Hound of the Baskervilles – Central Square Theater

This wasn’t a typical shoot for me – usually, I attend the final dress rehearsal and shoot the entire time.  This time, however, I attended the dress on Tuesday, where we selected a few key scenes.  Then last night, we did a few set-ups, ran some lines from said key scenes, and that was that. It was a little refreshing to change it up like that.

These guys are hilarious.  The three of them easily shift between 16 characters, cracking puns all along.  I had worked with Remo for the preview photos, so I knew he was expressive, but the other two really help round out the show.

The Hound of the Baskervilles started tonight at Central Square Theater, and plays through August 22.