Taking Our Best Shot by Guest Blogger Greg MacKellan

[ed. I want to thank guest blogger Artistic Director Greg MacKellan for this contribution. I’ll be back to blogging starting on Monday with a special series on Ira Gershwin.Look for a new blog every day next week leading up to our most fantastic Ira Gershwin Salon Evening.]

TAKING OUR BEST SHOT


Although rehearsals are still several weeks away, on January 8th, some of the performers from our spring shows got together at MoonSpace to shoot publicity photos.  This was the first time the actors from Lady, Be Good! and Very Warm for May got together as a group.

The weather outside was frightful, but in the studio it was definitely delightful. Photo shoots always have a bit of a “party” atmosphere as the actors take their places in front of the camera and start “trying on” the characters they will be playing weeks (or months) later. Enjoy this first peek at the shows that will have San Francisco humming Gershwin and Kern this spring! 


Costumer Louise Jarmilowicz, production manager Erin Maxwell, and of course photographer David Allen add to the mix of personalities hard at work quickly capturing a bit of the spirit of the shows in sessions that last about an hour for each show.

Lady, Be Good! was up first – a jazz-age show that originally starred Fred and Adele Astaire.  Our own Fred and Adele, Ian Simpson and Rena Wilson, danced their way through a couple of improvised routines, while Alexis Papedo, Andrew Boyer, Lisa Hensley, and Ben Knoll also made vivid appearances before David’s camera.

Then it was Very Warm for May – a “summer stock” themed show.   This shoot was a little crazy, because the show focuses on a rather eccentric director (played by Bill Fahrner) who casts his actors in rather avant garde roles – a tree, a musket, a babbling brook.  Sepideh Moafi, Luke Chapman, Megan Hopp, Zak Franczak, and Sarah Kathleen Farrell had a lot of fun making up crazy routines for Bill to “direct.”   (Anil Margsahayam – back with us for the first time since One Touch of Venus in 2007 – plays a New York director who comes in to give some Broadway sparkle to the show.)

-       Greg MacKellan