For the past several years, I’ve had the pleasure of creating the show posters for Rochester Civic Theatre. They are displayed in the lobby, and the artwork is used in the season brochure and, generally, for ads. This is a collaborative effort with Greg Miller, artistic director at the theatre, providing small sketches showing the rough concept. For the most part, my posters are photo-based, although I’ve strayed into more graphic realms now and then. But there’s always at least one photo somewhere in the mix.
The season and the posters are unveiled at the opening of their traditional spring musical. Disney’s Beauty and the Beastopened last Friday marking the announcement of RCT’s 60th season. The new season shows are kept secret until the announcement, so I can’t really show off my posters before then. (BTW, tickets for Beauty are going fast, so order yours now!)
I fortunately knew the season shows last autumn which allowed me to grab a headstone shot before the ground was covered in the usual all-winter-long snow. We can finally see grass again in our yard! I spend a lot of time in Photoshop working on these, but I didn’t really want to try removing two or three feet of snow and inserting grass if I could avoid it.
The concept for this poster was pretty simple. In fact, the working sketch I drew as Greg didn’t get to it. A young woman, her beau, and her father form the basis of the show with an underlying baseball theme. I struggled with making that image stand out until I hit on this magazine cover idea. Sometimes, you see something and it just hits you – Aha! Then it was a matter of working the tag line, credits, and opening date into the image in a way that suggests a magazine cover.
White Christmas was the easiest poster. The show is coming back for an encore after having a huge sell-out crowd last December. We’re reusing the poster from last season with the “back by popular demand” addition. I spent more time on it than I really had to, but I wanted this add-on to be more than just a simple text box. Trying to add a little class to it.
I still remember getting my car stuck when I was out shooting the box in the snow last year. I sort of think of that whenever I see this image. For some reason.
This poster has a more involved story than the others. Although I had the headstone image in the bag at the time, the first other shot I did was this background which I took in a meadow at Yosemite in January. I specifically was looking for a shot that would work while I was there, and came home with quite a collection of shots I probably otherwise would not have taken.
Then there was the wardrobe. Where to find a decent wardrobe to shoot which had the right look and size? I even checked some of the stock photo sites, but a straight on shot is rare. I finally decided to see what I could manage drawing the wardrobe myself. I did my best to channel Bert Monroy and Corey Barker who do terrific computer illustration work.
While I didn’t draw the outside of the doors (they’re very ornate, I’m sure!), I did create side pillars with several levels and ornaments. They’re right back there behind the doors.
A few years ago, one of the sketches Greg made had this leg and a gun with Chicago in bold letters. Before I had a chance to start working on it, he informed me, no, we can’t obtain the rights to the show. At least once more since then, they thought it was a go but turned out not.
When I heard Chicagowas on the slate for 2012, my reaction was, “really?” Are we sure? Yes. The first version of this poster had the title along the top, but we opted for more leg! Photoshop was used to enhance this image, but the photo involved three flashes with three different gels. I just love using gels.
This was a fun photo to shoot. Yes, the pillar is a stage prop, but trust me, it’s heavy! I was hoping Brad could keep it from crushing the rest of the gang before I was done and had the shot I wanted. That’s Greg on the left.
There you have it, the shows for season 60 and the product of my work over the past couple months. I use Photoshop regularly, but working on these posters always expands my knowledge of the tool and my comfort using it along with my Wacom tablet. It also increasingly taxes the ability of my main computer where I’m finding I really need to upgrade. But we work with what we have.
