In March, Distant Era posted our production photos for Idle Muse Theatre Company’s What the Weird Sisters Saw, a retelling of Macbeth from the witches’ point of view.
We photograph production photos at the beginning of tech week, when lights, sound, set, costumes (and much more!) are being finalized prior to the opening of the show. We usually have less than an hour to capture everything we need, and sometimes technical elements aren’t final when we’re shooting our production photos. Over the past year, we’ve discussed an extra photography session near the end of the run, in which we can capture the designers’ hard work in its final form. We therefore photographed this archival session to create a record of the designers’ technical work.
Color Gallery
This gallery shows the work of the designers in color. There were so many colored lights in the production, and most of the shots below show how color was used in the show. All in all, we sent over between two hundred and three hundred color photos to Idle Muse for their archives.
Black-and-White Gallery
What the Weird Sisters Saw used a staggering number of lighting cues. In virtually every scene, moody, colored light tints the dark and ominous atmosphere that encompasses the witches’ visions, as shown in the gallery above. Though one of our main objectives in this archival section was to capture how that color featured in the production, we provided a black-and-white gallery to Idle Muse as well. This black-and-white gallery focuses on the textural details used in the production, sans color. We sent black-and-white versions of all the color photos we provided for Idle Muse, but here are a few examples, some from the gallery above for comparison.
Portrait Gallery
We photographed the archival photos after a Sunday production. It seemed like a good opportunity to photograph some quick portraits in the transition time between the show and the archival session. This way, costume designer Jennifer Mohr would have some nice costume references, and each of the actors would have a dedicated character portrait.
As always, it was a pleasure to capture these photos for Idle Muse’s Jeff Recommended production. It’s rare that we do more than one session for a show. In the case of What the Weird Sisters Saw, we did three! In a future post, we’ll share the experimental creative session we did. Thanks very much to Idle Muse for the opportunity to photograph this beautiful show. Below, check out the exemplary cast and crew of What the Weird Sisters Saw as it appears on Idle Muse Theatre Company’s website.
What the Weird Sisters Saw Cast and Creative Crew
CAST: Caty Gordon (Murron), Jennifer Mohr (Dana), Jamie Redwood (Alastriona), Elizabeth MacDougald (Hecate), Joel Thompson (Macbeth), Mara Kovacevic (Lady Macbeth), Troy Schaeflein (Banquo), Brendan Hutt (Porter), Watson Swift (Macduff), Erik Schnitger (Duncan), Orion Lay-Sleeper (Malcolm) and Understudies Merrick McWherter, Katy Crow, Boomer Lusink, Lauren Paige, Meghann Tabor, Nick Barnes, Jack Sharkey, and John Wilson.
CREATIVE: Evan Jackson (director and co-adaptor), Tristan Brandon (co-adaptor, properties designer & health safety officer) Shellie DiSalvo (production manager), Libby Beyreis (assistant director and violence designer), Laura J. Wiley (lighting & projection designer), L.J. Luthringer (music & sound designer), Jennifer Mohr (costume designer), Stina Taylor (scenic designer), Breezy Snyder (scenic artist), Cori Lang (dramaturg) Becky Warner (stage manager), Line Bower (technical director), Lindsey Chidester (assistant stage manager), Michael Dalberg (literary director), Mara Kovacevic (treasurer/box office manager), Kati Lechner (director of fundraising/health safety officer), and Jinni Barak (social media).
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