A Christmas Carol redux
The holidays are all about traditions, making new and recreating old. I think this is the third run for my poster illustration for Portland Stage’s A Christmas Carol. I’ve blogged about it before HERE. Yet every production brings a new look and feel, and this year’s telling of the Charles Dicken’s classic hits every high note. Back in 2014, my early sketches involved Victorian ornaments with bits of narrative against a backdrop of smoking chimneys from Dicken’s London. I proceeded to color. But simple was best; ornaments were lost as the backdrop became the...
Read MoreRefuge-Malja
Portland playwright Bess Welden’s play currently at Portland Stage, Refuge-Malja, is full of haunting visuals and time-shifting moments. It’s non-linear and complex, a multi-cultural story that unfolds in both dreams and flashback. We meet Jamie, a Jewish-American freelance photojournalist, who has encountered a young Syrian refugee on a beach in Lesbos. When I read the script last winter, I wondered how Portland Stage would handle the many changes of place and times, as well as the Wolf, a figure seen by Jamie since she was a child. There was a wealth of material to distill for...
Read MoreBen Butler’s Surprise
This is my fourth year of illustrating all the posters for Portland Stage’s season. This time I was asked to provide a cohesive, limited palette as well as hand-lettering for all the posters, to better connect the group as a whole. I admit I was surprised by last night’s performance of Ben Butler by Richard Strand. When I read the play in January, I was dubious about the script, a slice of Civil War history based on actual events and real people but with invented dialogue. Still, I came up with numerous approaches after some visual digging about that period. In one scene, a...
Read MoreSex and Other Disturbances
Last night we saw Sex and Other Disturbances by Marisa Smith. When I read the script over a year ago, I had other thoughts for a poster besides that 3 letter word. The play touches many topics: marriage, aging, infidelity, female bonds, betrayal. Anney Giobbe plays Sarah, desperate for attention as the wife of Alan, an accountant preoccupied with environmental collapse, and mother of an off-stage teenager. She meets a sexy younger man in acting class, Niko, who becomes the catalyst for her changing identity. She visits his Tribeca apartment, loaded with plants, like an exotic jungle, or...
Read MoreThe Niceties
The Niceties is a sharply relevant play by Eleanor Burgess now in it’s final performances at Portland Stage Company. Thanks to a busy April, I didn’t see it til Friday night. I gathered a group of educators, mostly at the college level, to see the train wreck that transpires between a white female history professor at an elite university and her black student. When I read the script, I knew it would be one of the most compelling productions of the current season. The dialogue is fast-paced and urgent. The divides are many: of race, age, privilege, class. While gender may unite...
Read MoreSeason Launch at Portland Stage
Last night Portland Stage revealed the posters I’ve been working on since January during their Season Launch. That crew never ceases to amaze me with their acrobatic juggling of events and sheer creative muscle. Director of Communications Eileen Phelan built a crowd eager to see what’s in store for next season, while Marketing Associate Lena Castro had managed all my digital files into their proper places. Thank you! Executive and Artistic Director Anita Stewart and Literary Manager Todd Brian Backus greeted me. Love these two visionaries. While the audience streamed in, photos...
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