A.D. Drumm Images, LLC – Landscape, Portrait, and Fine Art Photography in Rochester MN Photography

Last night was opening night for Rochester Civic Theatre’s production of the musical Grease. The cast and crew did a fantastic job and managed to keep their energy high throughout the performance. It was especially true of the dancing which was pretty amazing.

I shot the show photos on Wednesday, the final dress rehearsal before their preview performance to an audience on Thursday. Lots of color, lots of costumes, gel’ed lights, and leather jackets to capture.

The dancing and all that energy along with the lighting make for a challenging photography assignment, but I’m pleased with the results. Going into a photo shoot for a musical, you have some expectations for what will be happening. But there is quite a range. Consider a show like Les Misérables earlier this season at RCT which is almost entirely sung but which has practically no choreography. The lighting was often low, but the movement is more gradual, sort of a slow walk.

Other shows have a mix of choreography that you might consider as something of flowing from here to there. Grease, on the other hand, is set in the late ’50s and early ’60s with early rock-n-roll setting the mood. The dancing is high energy and fast. You hit the shutter button trying to capture the midpoints in the action when things stop for a tiny instant. If you’re lucky, you nail it. I don’t worry about a little movement – sometimes that actually provides a feeling of the movement that’s good to have. But blurry faces are not usually a good thing!

It was fun seeing the show as just an audience member last night. RCT is presenting the original stage version of the show which differs from the movie – as is usually the case – and apparently differs a bit from the revival that came later. Some of the songs were unfamiliar to me, and I haven’t seen the movie more than once or twice anyway. While shooting, I just don’t pay much attention to the dialog and lyrics unless I’ve gotten my shots for a part of a scene when visually things are not changing.

There was also a little incident during the rehearsal I shot that involved a bit of blood. It was good to see that had been resolved, and the wounded actor was fine. Live theatre is like that.

It was also great to see a packed house. Word is, the first two weekends are sold out and the final two weekends are selling well.

So, you still have a chance to buy tickets if you haven’t already. Just don’t procrastinate. It’s a fun evening and you get to see some of the awesome talent we have here in and around Rochester.

The current production – opening this evening – at Rochester Civic Theatre is the musical How I Became a Pirate. I attended the final dress rehearsal without an audience the other night to shoot the show photos.

It’s a fun and very fast-paced show. The energy of the cast is contagious, and the songs are catchy as well. While I was focused on taking photos, I still enjoyed it a lot. Somehow, it’s a nice counterpoint to the snowy and very cold weather we’ve been dealing with this winter.

From a photographer’s point of view, there are some arrangements of the actors that I love to see. I know they will provide a great composition. This show had tons of them. The costumes are not vivid colors like some shows, but they worked well against the set and the splashes of red are nice. There are also several scenes with fun lighting.

As I culled through my shots, I found there were many that I really like. I have to give props to the director and choreographer for the blocking that worked so well.

It was also fun to see Mari, who has worked at the theatre for quite some time finally up on stage. She was great as a singing and dancing pirate!

Except for Logan, who plays Jeremy Jacob, the cast is adults and young adults. But Logan is the center of attention, all the action surrounding him. And, he does a wonderful job in the role. I can’t possibly imagine having his confidence and abilities at this age.

This is a show I’d not heard of before the RCT season was announced, and I didn’t have much idea what to expect. Generally, musicals provide more photo opportunities than a straight play. There’s that singing and dancing thing – usually a lot of movement, a lot going on, and not a lot of just sitting and talking. But I didn’t know if that’s what this show would be like.

It was quite so. I took a ton of shots, and there was always something else going on now or soon. It keeps me on my toes, for sure.

As I’ve become more of a theatre geek, I’m slowly growing my knowledge of shows. There are so many, of course. Part of the problem of producing live theatre is a public who shy away from shows they don’t know or haven’t heard of. I guess that happens with motion pictures, too – witness the plethora of sequels. But, it’s very worthwhile to go see new shows. They can be fun, they can make you laugh or cry, they can make you think. And we all need to exercise that bundle of nerves in our heads.

How I Became a Pirate opens tonight at RCT. We’ll be there for the opening performance. It’s a terrific way to spend a Friday evening.

Meanwhile, I have now shot my first show of 2014! Hopefully, many more to come.

I recently shot two shows, one each at Riverland Community College and Rochester Civic Theatre. Both shows were shot live just a few days apart.

Riverland’s show was Boeing Boeing, a French farce taking place in the early 1960s as a fellow arranges to be “engaged” to three different women, all of them flight attendants. He is confident they will all remain ignorant of the others because they are in town on tightly scheduled days. But, they all inform him of the new Boeing jetliners that will make traveling so much faster and give them so much more time together. The typical farce activities then ensue.

The show is staged in the fellow’s flat, so there’s a box set with bright walls and the lighting was, for the most part, nice and bright. There’s a lot of fast paced action, so having good light and being able to use faster shutter speeds was a plus.

I think the name of the game for shooting a show like this is to watch for good expressions and gestures. Shooting a show like Rocky Horror, Riverland’s recent show, is in some ways easier. You have more extravagant costumes and sets, and there’s just more there visually to work with.

Here, you have to be on your game and watching for the reactions. It’s really has to be more about the people, the characters. Otherwise you have only a couch or a table and a wall. Big musicals deserve to be about the characters as well, but the environment is entirely different, and one can make good looking photos without as much thinking. Of course, the great shots use that environment just to fill the frame and draw us to the characters.

Over at Rochester Civic Theatre, they are producing Winter Wonderettes. This is a follow-on of Marvelous Wonderettes, a show they did early last season. It’s basically a show filled with 1960s period songs, in this case holiday songs, with a plot loosely woven through it. There’s a band on stage, up stage of the action, and four women actors/singers.

A show like this, more of a musical review than a more typical musical (and RCT’s last show was Les Misérables), is more about finding the moments than the story. While I have shots showing the story along the way, it’s the “moments” photos that I like best.

This show has some nice lighting effects to capture in photos. They help to draw us to a particular person, our subject for the photo. There were plenty of solos that have the lead singer in the spotlight, and the others together either watching or, more often, singing backup. Nice moments.

Then, there are whacky moments. It’s an entertaining show, and it’s filled with many of these.

Technically, the lower light and contrast-causing spotlights make this sort of show more challenging than the box set farce. But the latter, as I said earlier, has its own challenges – more from a compositional and art point of view.

For me, the diversity is fun. While I can categorize each show photo shoot to some degree, they are all different, and the differences keep the photography enjoyable.

Winter Wonderettes is still in production at RCT. I’ll be there again tonight. It can be a great way to spend a cold December night in Rochester!

Rochester Civic Theatre’s opening production for the 2013-2014 season was the spectacular Les Misérables. This is a show the theatre has wanted to produce for some time, but you have to wait for the owners of the show to make it available. It’s a huge show – nearly 40 cast members and a full orchestra of 30 or so. It’s also hugely popular for both theatre-goers and actors.

The auditions were swamped with people, and the final cast list included many new faces. That’s great for the vibrancy of the theatre with many fine actors and great voices. Hopefully, many will return for shows in the future. With the show opening in early September, rehearsals consumed the latter half of summer, so you can imagine how much everyone wanted to do this show.

It was important for the theatre to do this up right with costumes, set, and lighting fit for the show. I was excited to see the show on opening night, and the photographer in me was paying close attention to the lighting. Ben Hain, the technical director at the RCTC theatre, designed the lighting. I loved it and couldn’t wait to do the show photos.

I wrote a post about a live dance event I shot out at RCTC a while back (click here to see it). Ben did that lighting as well. So my expectations were high. Although we stage the shots at RCT (versus live shooting I do elsewhere), we use the lighting program for the scene we’re shooting. There were only one or two times we bumped a light a tad for the photo, perhaps when we want to move the actor(s) a bit for composition. All of these shots were taken using the designed lighting as is.

I think some of my favorite shots involved the barricade (assembled by the young rebels to ward off the king’s army). The crew created a very convincing barricade. Particularly in the darker, moodier lights, it just looked great. It made a wonderful backdrop for the actors. The barricade scenes are emotional and powerful, so the photos needed to be, too.

The lighting played an important role, the actors did their part, and I just had to find the picture.

I’m able to move around and find the shot, and the stage and house setup at RCT allows me to get a low vantage point from just in front of the stage, or move up a few rows for a more direct or slightly down-looking viewpoint.

Of course, the dim light in some scenes makes shooting somewhat trickier. Even with the good low-light capability of my camera, I still try to keep the ISO (which controls the light sensitivity) at a setting I know will produce good quality shots. Then I need to balance my exposure settings and hold the camera still. Not always easy, and sometimes the actors are moving, as well. That’s less of a problem here than doing a live shoot, but people do move.

One advantage of doing staged shots is the ability to create just the look Greg, the director, wants. We can move folks around at will. Being actors, they give us believable expressions, but they also have a habit of breaking each other up. Then you wait for everyone to stop laughing so you can get the photo. Actors!

The RCT schedule for this season include five shows, four of them musicals. Should be an interesting year. They are already in rehearsals for the next show. One more show at Riverland in what’s left of 2013, too. Since late summer, I’ve shot Spamalot, The Rocky Horror Show, The Wizard of Oz, and Les Misérables. All I can say is, wow! Great fun, for sure.