50 Years of Northlight Music

Northlight Theatre approaches its fiftieth anniversary season with an exciting move to a brand new space in a brand new building in downtown Evanston. My colleague Greg Inda captured the groundbreaking for Northlight’s new theatre back in March. As part of the festivities for this monumental anniversary, on June 1 Northlight hosted an event at Space called 50 Years of Northlight Music, a retrospective concert that featured memorable pieces from Northlight’s fifty-year history, performed by E. Faye Butler, Heidi Kettenring, Rob Lindley, Alexis J. Roston, Stephen Schellhardt, and Bri Sudia.

It was my honor to photograph the reception and concert, my fifth event for Northlight, having previously photographed their 2023 and 2024 galas at the Chicago Botanic Garden and assisted Greg Inda on Northlight’s promotional shoots for 2019’s Nina Simone: Four Women and Prayer for the French Republic in 2025.

It is always the greatest pleasure working with Northlight. The professionalism and kindness of their artists, guests, and staff is unparalleled, in my experience. I’m grateful to Northlight for the opportunity to work together and to Greg Inda for the referral.

Top: 50 Years of Northlight Music host Rob Lindley; the reception and concert guests.
Bottom: artistic director BJ Jones speaking at the event.

Northlight Theatre has shared many more pictures from 50 Years of Northlight Music on their social media—here are the Facebook and Instagram galleries.

In parting, here’s a behind-the-scenes shot of my first time working with Northlight in 2018 while assisting Greg Inda.

Assisting Greg Inda on promotional photography for Northlight Theatre’s *Nina Simone: Four Women* in late 2018. Photo by Greg Inda.

event photography

steven Latest posts

Steven Townshend is a fine art/portrait photographer and writer with a background in theatre, written narrative, and award-winning game design. As a young artist, Steven toured the US and Canada performing in Shakespeare companies while journaling their moments on paper and film. In his transition from stage to page, Steven continued to work as a theatre photographer, capturing dramatic scenes while incorporating elements of costume, makeup, and theatrical lighting in his work. Drawn to stories set in other times and places, Steven creates works through which fellow dreamers and time travelers might examine their own humanity or find familiar comfort in the reflections of the people and places of a distant era.