Theatrical Photography

When I seriously began working on my theatrical career at Grinnell, I also discovered a secret love of capturing theatre on stage with my camera. I was also working as a staff photographer for the campus newspaper, The Scarlet & Black, and volunteered to sit through dress rehearsals and shoot the pictures because I already knew the directors, actors, and stage managers that I would need to ask permission of.

Sitting in the darkened theatre while the final pieces are coming together is a magical time. My theatrical brain was often enthralled and had to be turned off so that I would focus through the lens at the action on stage. Ultimately, I enjoyed that with little effort or input by myself, the visual impact of my subject was heightened and dramatic. By definition, a theatrical moment has dramatic lighting and tension that can be perfect to capture in a photograph, like the one below:



Unfortunately, being in the right part of the house and approximate distance from the stage are also important to capturing the right moments, which is why most theatre companies choose to hold separate photo calls so that the photographer(s) can be anywhere they want without interfering with the action of a rehearsal or performance. I, however, prefer to get my pictures during dress and previews because a staged moment does not have the same vitality as capturing the actors mid-gesture with the click of the shutter.



Furthermore, taking pictures during a dress can also provide information that can lead to important decisions during a photo call. The picture at the top of this post, from Jim Wren & Joe Sturgeon's memorable The Revenger's Tragedy at UNCG in the Fall of 2008, was shot during final dress and became the number one sought after pose for photo call for lighting and costumes. It was a stunning scene visually, but without having captured it with my camera, it didn't necessarily read as a defining still-image of the show.

One of the main reasons that I have taken pictures in the theatre is for my personal portfolio as a designer. I find that my photographic training has served me well in that I am also looking for composition of the image that will represent the show for years to come. Granted, I sometimes forget to snap a wide-angle shot to encompass the entire scenic view, but the close-ups are the ones that really get people interested enough to stop and look over my work. Don't tell me that you aren't intrigued by this picture, even if you can't really see what part I played in this staged moment:

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To see more of my theatrical photography, please visit the Theatrics Gallery on my website mrtoomey.com.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose...

For many years now I have signed my work "MR Toomey" rather than using my first name. The reasoning behind it has changed in nuance over the years -- it started because I was tickled by the fact that my initials titled me MR. T -- but it remained constant in the fact that I rather enjoyed an air of mystery about who I was, primarily my gender. As a young girl I read the Anne of Green Gable books by L.M. Montgomery and was fascinated that, until I went looking, I had assumed that the author of this wonderful series was male. I thought, "How clever, to disguise your gender by only using your initials." There are a number of ways that I can parse this young thought of mine in terms of gender theory, but for now I use it merely a point of reference as to when I somehow decided that being a female author, artist, etc. somehow demanded a different approach than if I were male.

Last week I read a quote by Rachel Rosenthal in Sue-Ellen Case's Feminism and Theatre* in which she discussed why this this might be the case. Rosenthal, speaking about her piece entitled The Arousing (Shock, Thunder) said, the piece "dealt with the fact that I had been male-identified for so long... the reason for that is because for so long, the idea of artist was that an artist was male; and I was an artist, therefore I must be male." (60) I wrote in the margins of my book, "Is this why I want to be MR Toomey?"

The short answer is "yes."

The long, more nuanced answer that I have been mulling over in my mind is "maybe?".

I do believe that the desire to hide my gender falls into this realm of being cognizant--though very unaware of the political ramifications--that by being gender neutral with just my initials, I would get more recognition of the work that exists out there without me beside it because I would, by default, be assumed male. It is a bonus that my initials make for a more direct declaration of my gender being male by abbreviating "mister." But it is this last point that makes it a bit of a maybe. For many years now, since writing "MR Toomey" (deliberately not using punctuation) on personal items like CDs, signing my photography and creating a corresponding website as "MR Toomey," and turning in drafting to theatres I've worked at as "MR Toomey" I have, without fail, been asked by someone seeing these signatures, "Who's Mr. Toomey?" Ha ha, I laugh, but it's getting old. In part because everyone believes they are being clever and somehow even I missed this blatant title-shift in my initials. But also because it is not written as Mr. Toomey, so why is that when you see an M and an R together that we are immediately conjuring up that mode of address? Or, for that matter, why I cannot embrace the quirks of my initials and perhaps I've done it on purpose (I've been told a number of times by male counterparts that perhaps I should at least consider using punctuation).

This debate over my professional name and thus identity is ongoing. I recently changed my website, which is still mrtoomey.com, to read on the title page "Margaret R. Toomey" for better search results on the internet. However, I still sign all of my photographs and art with my "MR Toomey" signature (in part because, shorter than my full signature, it looks neater and takes up less room but also because I have a legacy of being MR Toomey, Photographer). In an upcoming conference, my display boards use my full name because I didn't want to face snide remarks while presenting my work professionally for the first time (especially since those remarks are generally made when I am revealed to be a girl).

That which I continue to ponder is whether my initial impulse to male-identify, as Rosenthal says, because I saw artists as only male remains and problematizes my choice of nom de guerre, or is the nature of embracing an initial-based name that turns gender on its head once more overcome those problems and cast me as Artist (sans specific gender) in a new light.

Discuss.










*Case, Sue-Ellen. Feminism and Theatre. Reissued ed. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Print. On Amazon >>