Over at the Hayes Theatre in Potts Point, they do keep busy. It seems like every few weeks there's a new production opening; most recently, the musical High Fidelity, from Highway Run Productions & director Neil Gooding.

As with everything I've seen at the Hayes, the cast and production are exceptional - in a lot of cases, they've come straight from a much larger show to work in this ~100 seat venue, so there's certainly no shortage of available talent in Sydney, at every level of production.

And the reviews reflect that; so of course, the challenge for me is to make it look as good - or better - than it did on stage, so the images that go to reviewers underscore the points they're making about the production, in a positive light...

Only Heaven Knows at the Hayes Theatre, Sydney

With the debate over marriage equality still hanging in the air in Australia, it's hardly surprising that the campaign continues on stage; because of course, it's been going on quite a while, as Alex Harding's 1988 musical Only Heaven Knows suggests - and it's not just 30 years, it's much longer than that...

I Love You Now at Darlinghurst Theatre Company, Sydney

Last time I was over at Darlinghurst Theatre Company, it was for a surrealist door-slamming farce; this time, it was a bit less farcical - but doors were slammed nonetheless...

Jeanette Cronin (who I photographed last year in The Shadow Box at the Old Fitz, also directed by Kim Hardwick) is this time both writer and co-star in I Love You Now - not so much a farce as a series of overlapping stories about modern love, lust, relationships and death, all played out in a single hotel room. Punctuated with live music, and tango...!

Photographing the arts: working with a traverse stage

"A fox called Scruffilitis."

I knew there'd be something different about this show, from that description alone.

"This is the tale of Jonah, Sophie, and a fox called Scruffilitis. It’s a true story, and it’s a love story. A quirky, dysfunctional, voyeuristic love story, but a love story all the same."

I don't usually take much convincing to photograph theatre, as it's one of my favourite things to work on - but when I started talking to director Luke Rogers from Stories Like These about working on this production, a couple of things caught my interest. The fox, for one - and the stage itself for another...

Witches with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra

I was working with the good folks at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra again over the weekend, at the premiere of a new concert called Witches - featuring four Australian stars who've all played, well, witches, both here and overseas.

Helen Dallimore and Lucy Durack represented for Team Good Witch, having played Glinda in Wicked on the West End and in Australia respectively; and Jemma Rix and Amanda Harrison combined forces for evil, having both been Elphaba in Australia, New Zealand, and on tour through Asia as well.

The idea was to get them together, and put together an extravaganza of music based around that theme...

Photographing the arts: what makes a great production image when the story is well known?

In a previous post, I talked about photographing a show that is unknown to its audience; my point was that the best publicity images are ones that leave an air of mystery - that pique the viewer's interest, and make them want to know more. But what about a show where the story is well known already - like a panto?

I was working recently with Bonnie Lythgoe Productions on their winter show, Cinderella, at the State Theatre in Sydney - and that's what made me really start looking at this question again.

Because really - the story is a given. So what you want to show in a still image is twofold - what's different about this production, and at the same time, what's familiar about it? How can you show off both the uniqueness of this version, and also capture the feeling of a story that's been told again and again, for over a hundred years?