event musings: chance photo shoot (the box)

Photo Shoot: Chance and The Box
Wednesday August 1, 2012
The Box, 189 Chrystie Street

Work continues on the initial issues of Chance, a new art magazine intended to explore the visual possibilities of theatre in its many forms, as well as the artists and craftspeople who make it happen. I wrote in June about a Yonkers photo shoot inspired by the story, setting, characters, and themes of a new Sharr White play set during the First World War. Earlier this month I attended a shoot attempting to capture images of theatre in a sexy burlesque nightclub with a theatre pedigree that’s been around for a few years.

I creep around the edges of this shoot in early evening between 6pm and 9pm, before the usual club open hours that start later. During this early evening work session, several of the club performers go through their paces in front of a skeleton crew and a few observers. Fitz Patton sound designer, is one of the masterminds behind the publication and this shoot. Trip Cullman, theatre director, art directs this shoot as he did the Yonkers shoot in June. Fabrice Trombert, fashion photographer, is present with his fabulous equipment and several photographer assistants who manage digital copies of the images he takes during the evening and equipment is where Fabrice needs it to be. With only a few adjustments (additional lights here, lights taken down elsewhere) the several acts that have been pre-selected run through their paces — including a woman in drag, a man-woman-man removing several layers of disguise, a man who performers with an acrobatic chihuahua.

Theatre is captured in still photography. And I observe.