KING LEAR Key Art with Babes With Blades Theatre Company

A short time ago, Distant Era made preproduction photographs for Babes With Blades Theatre Company’s King Lear, by William Shakespeare, directed by Alison Dornheggen, and featuring actor Lynne Baker as King Lear. This is the latest in the history of preproduction images I’ve done with Babes With Blades for the past sixteen years, beginning with Jennifer L. Mickelson’s The Last Daughter of Oedipus in 2010.

Graphic Design

As usual, these photographs were to serve as elements in graphic designer Morgan Manasa’s design for the Lear posters, postcards, and ads. Morgan’s concept was to lay a map over Lear’s face and then divide that face and map into sections. For this, the photography needs were relatively simple: We only needed to shoot Lynne’s head and shoulders on a gray background that would make extracting those elements easy for Morgan in her work.

Top: Lynne Baker pulling out all the stops in our key art session.
Bottom: Babes With Blades Theatre Company’s King Lear postcard, designed by Morgan Manasa.

I’ve been a fan of Lynne Baker since we first met during Babes With Blades Theatre Company’s The Invisible Scarlet O’Neil in 2017. Throughout our session, Lynne brought nuance and emotion to every single frame. Whether in quiet, subtle expressions or full-on wrath, intention sparked in Lynne’s eyes in every shot, throughout a range of emotions. After an hour of photography, we had a wealth of options.

Dramatic Bonus Portraits

Whenever I can, I like to do something special at the end of a session if there’s time. Full costumes were unnecessary for this design, so more portraiture didn’t make sense. Instead, I leaned into some experimental, dramatic lighting and directed Lynne through a small series of prompts, which she performed with masterful skill. For this, I used the fresnel I had used previously with the Anne Bonny and Mary Read image I did as an extra from Babes With Blades Theatre Company’s previous production of yo ho., and which I’ve used for the Golden Age of the Silver Screen series. Having seldom used it for color photos, I thought this would be a good opportunity to experiment. We only used the one light in these bonus images.

There is little more to tell of this story except that it took place during the week I returned from Gen Con with over a dozen mini sessions and an event to edit—the same week we did the photography session for the Shane program and standee at City Lit, and the same week we did Matt Keeley’s giant six-hour fitness and personal brand session. Thus, a relatively straightforward and fun preproduction session with Lynne, Morgan Manasa, and Hayely Rice was a welcome relief. Thanks to Morgan, Hayely, Babes With Blades, and our amazing subject, Lynne Baker, for such a great session.

Babes With Blades Theatre Company’s production of King Lear opened in October 24 at Theater Wit in Chicago and runs through November 21, 2026.

Moody *King Lear* portrait extras with Lynne Baker.

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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.