Theatre Alliance have a knack of coming up with creative shows. You could say the same thing for many theatre companies and casts but there’s a difference with TA. A USP, if you will. Their shows deeply and passionately relate to their local communities, regions and Scotland as a whole.
The research that goes into creating their scripts by Choreographer & Artistic Director, Marlisa Ross, is astounding. With each performance, they transport the audience to different eras and places, leaving them both educated and utterly enchanted. These are more than shows—they are a journey through time, brought to life by performers who pour their heart and soul into every movement and word.
Each performance is accompanied by great musical scores and songs from both modern and older genres. Musical Director, Stuart Bird, has the knack of perfectly matching just the right musical accompaniment to each scene.
As a photographer having worked with Marlisa, Stuart and the cast for a number of years now it always gets me excited when I get the message from Marlisa. We’ve worked more on the addition of creating promo images the last couple of years which I and the cast really look forward to doing.
Often the scripts aren’t finalised at this point! The message will often start with a cryptic request from Marlisa out of the blue. Taking this latest performance as an example, she sent me a message a good few months in advance of the show.
“Ayrshire witches, where’s good to take some photos?”
From that point she’s already hooked me. Intrigue and confusion soon spark a deeper discussion of ideas for the promo images. What props, what costumes, where, when etc. It all kicks off a collaborative creative ball of ideas and I’m so glad the cast look forward to playing their part in front of my camera.
The image galleries in this post shows some of the promo images and some from the show which was at a new venue for TA. The Cutty Sark Centre in Ayr isn’t typically set up as a theatre but the team pulled together to make sure the audience enjoyed the intimate setting.
Thanks again as always to everyone at Theatre Alliance.
MARTIN CLARK PHOTOGRAPHY 