Peeping Tom

The last few shows I've directed, my friend Damian has produced simply amazing posters for the productions. The previous two shows I directed Damian used photographs as the main images for the posters, but for The Metamorphosis I wanted an illustration, and he just happens to a wonderful artist.
We're both big fans of black and white, grey scale, and stark images with lots of shadow, so we always seem to be on the same wavelength.
Having the right message, or theme conveyed through a poster is an important thing to me. It's the first real image people get of the production so I suppose it's sort of like that saying first impressions are everything...or something along those lines.
The first poster Damian designed for me was for a production of Lee Blessing's Two Rooms which is about a man who is being kept hostage in Beirut. His wife is in America and has cleared out her husband's study to resemble the room he is being kept hostage in. This is the only way she feels she can connect to him, but by doing this, she basically makes a hostage of herself. For the poster, the actor playing the hostage wore a black blindfold while the wife wore a white blindfold and they seemed to be on opposite sides of a door or wall. I thought it was a really telling image. But I can't find it on my computer...

I directed an original play for Black Box Fire's Emerging Artist's Series called A Long Winter, which was about a group of people stuck in a bunker after a nuclear explosion. I used Picasso's Guernica as inspiration, and so did Damian for the poster. I used a single hanging light bulb on stage which worked nicely during transitions and it's a good signifier of being in a basement.

We used this instead of individual headshots.

Nice light bulb

For The Metamorphosis I wanted something that would hint at the transformation Gregor undergoes, yet doesn't really give away anything overly specific, like what kind of bug he turns into. I did know that I wanted it to look as if the viewer was looking through the keyhole of Gregor's door though. We're using a door to separate Gregor's room from the dining room in the production, and I like the sense of curiosity that comes with looking at something through a keyhole. So, once again, Damian has outdone himself and I'm extremely happy with the poster for the show.

Come see it!