A Christmas Carol: Final Poster

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For the final A Christmas Carol poster for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater had to revise Mrs. Cratchit and I think she turned out well. Tiny Tim was updated and I paid particular attention to how the leg braces were assembled. I pumped up the light shining from behind Tiny Tim to get him to pop out from the background better. Ebenezer Scrooge just needed a top hat. Cratchit was revised several times. He isn’t holding Tiny Tim as solidly so I think his intention is a little lost but overall the poster is working solidly.

If I were to assemble all the Christmas Carol posters together, both approved and not, it would make a fun collection. Many feature this dark snow filled gas lit street scene. For some reason A Christmas Carol for me is dark and brooding with bright sparks of light and hope.

I have been doing write ups for all these posters because I realized that I didn’t have time to do write ups at the time the shows were being performed. I am thinking there should be a category on this site for process images that show the evolution of any given concept. Illustration is seldom a one and done approval process. Changes are very much a part of the creative process. I am always searching for a way to express the idea behind a show as boldly as possible. Each poster has it’s own challenges. I started doing these posers after doing a painting every day during the height of the pandemic. I gather my thoughts and assemble the ideas in very much the same way I did then. Working digitally is a blessing. Changes can easily be made, especially if I plan ahead. If a character must be removed or replaced. I can often just turn off a layer in the painting program to make that happen at the flick of a switch. Another advantage is that the previous version remains in memory if I should want to refer back to it.

A Christmas Carol ran at the Orlando Shakes from November 26-December 24, 2025.

Fringe: Automatic Orchestra, Just Add Music

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At this year’s Orlando International Fringe Festival, Automatic Orchestra: Just Add Music in the Blue Venue of the Orlando Shakes is an immersive improvisational orchestra where the actors are inspired by the music created by the audience. Entering the venue, there were various methods of making sound in every audience seat. I moved a rattle from my seat over to the next seat. There were kazoos, cooking pans, one of those metal barrels with metal beads wrapped around it, and so much more. I was hoping to play a trumpet while I sketched, but I didn’t see one. I would just be making the sound of a pen scratching on the page.

Actors entered from back stage and through magic portals. There were duels, fights, peaceful negotiations and so much action.  No actor ever spoke, they simply listened to what sounds came from the audience to decide what they should do next. The audience also fed off of the action. The fellow seated in front of me to my right banged a pot any time a gun was fired. It was as if the entire audience was hired to act as folly artists. Since my hands were busy sketching, I simply hummed and made other vocal noises.

If there was a story line, I missed it. Not knowing what was happening made sketching a challenge. I like to think of what the verb is before I start sketching someone. Chaos begets chaos. Kayla Fischl from her show Unconditionally, acted as the guest conductor. She had a music stand in front of her, but every member of the audience had their own agenda in terms of making sound. Conducting would be like trying to herd stray cats.

It was an hour of nonsensical experimentation. With a drink or two in you and a very open mind, you will likely have a blast. Just don’t go in expecting any three act play with  a well-defined character arc. Go in to laugh and make plenty of noise.

Here are the remaining show times for Automatic Orchestra, Just Add Music presented by Renie and Bob Productions of Altamonte Springs Florida. In the Blue Venue in the Shakes. Rated for all ages. Run time 60 minutes. Tickets are $13. Be sure to pick up a Fringe button for entry.

Saturday May 23, 5:24pm

Sunday May 24, 6:55pm

Welcome to Matteson: First Pass

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Welcome to Matteson by Inda Craig-Gavlán, featured two couples having dinner. One couple needed to look high healed and the other needed to look lower middle class. This was a challenge which would rely on clothing to set them apart. In this first pass at painting the poster I relied on warm colors for the wealthy couple and yellows for the less wealthy couple. Having everyone toasting seemed to be the most natural gesture to get them all to interact.

Matteston is a suburb of Chicago Illinois. The less wealthy couple had just moved to Matteson from the Cabrini-Green public housing projects in Chicago. Cabrini-Green had a reputation for being overrun with gangs and crime. Cabrini Green was being torn down and residents were relocated. This couple was relocated to Matteson. They were excited to move to this quiet suburb, but they missed the sense of community they had found in Cabrini.

The buildings I put in the sketch were from a typical Chicago neighborhood. I had just screened my film COVID Dystopia in Chicago and fell in love with the old brownstone neighborhoods. The trouble was that Cabrini-Green looks nothing like this. The housing complex is more like the rows of housing developments that went up in the big cities after World War II. They are not very picturesque. The idea of replacing the brownstones with a suburban home made the most sense, yet most suburban homes are rather bland. Maybe I could just paint a dining room, but again I wanted something that was not so ordinary.

Snow fills the night sky. I then put in a circular yellow arch behind the buildings. This was meant to reference a snow globe and it helped silhouette the upper spires against the night sky. It was just a way to add a spark of more color. The buildings would have to go and that circular arch would morph into a much larger feature in the next pass at the poster.

Welcome to Matteson ran at the Orlando Shakes through March 29, 2025.

Henry VI Part 2: She Wolf of France Final

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The final version of the poster for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater production of Henry VI Part 2: She Wolf of France just involved me repainting the face since I now knew that Roberta Emerson would be playing the part of Queen Margaret. Emerson was credited with an “ice cold” performance and was honored by the Orlando Sentinel for her role for her ruthless demeanor and moments of vulnerability.  It was a rare role where the female lead could demand and gain absolute power.

Queen Margaret was a foreign bride, newly married to Henry VI. Unlike her husband, who was a weak ruler, Margaret was proactive and ruthless, commanding armies and seeking to secure the crown for her son. She was powerful in her own right, defying gender norms to engage directly in political intrigue and warfare. She became a Machiavellian political force, serving as a catalyst for chaos.

She despised her  weak husband and dominated court politics, engineered the downfall of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and began to dominate the House of Lancaster, setting the stage for the Wars of the Roses.

This was a rare case where I found out during the painting of the poster who the actress would be for the play many months in the future. There was fabulous reference because she had performed in many other Shakespeare productions.

Henry VI Part 2: She Wolf of France

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The first pass at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater poster for Henry VI Part 2: She Wolf of France by William Shakespeare focused on a female soldier and a white wolf howling in the woods. This was once again a play about the War of the Roses, so I included a white and red rose. I love painting roses, they are elegant and beautiful. Having worked on Mulan I have followed a story of a woman stepping onto the battlefield in a patriarchal society. She would have to be more of a warrior than any of the men.

I didn’t have to think about the Henry VI title treatment since I could lift it from the previous poster for consistency. It works. The expression was working but the pose itself felt static. I wanted something more chiseled and heroic. The crown fitting over the chain mail hood is something I found while researching. I imagine they must have designed a specific crown for that purpose. Visually when drawn it isn’t quite believable. I think it will need to fit more snug to the skull to work. To show the warrior was female I needed some long hair visible. I had it blow out form under the chain mail hood and into her face. This wasn’t an appealing or attractive choice but it hinted at the disheveled chaos of battle.

I started looking at heroic statues of warriors to figure out what else was needed to make the figure bolder. Straight lines would read better than the soft curves I was using in this rough sketch. I went back to the drawing board and I am pretty sure I submitted two passes of the idea at the first approval meeting. It is always good to have multiple versions of an idea or better yet multiple concepts to explore. I was following one path, but I was sure it needed improvement. That is what is so good about showing work in progress, people always have suggestions that send me down a new path and that is always exciting.

Henry VI Part 2: The She Wolf of France by William Shakespeare ran from January 8-19, 2025.

Becoming Othello: First Pass

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The first pass at creating a poster for Becoming Othello for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater involved a simple split screen portrait. On the left the actress smiles in a warm inviting portrait and on the right she is depicted in a severe cold portrait as the murderous Othello. Debra Ann Byrd is a female actress who embraces playing the male lead in Shakespeare’s Othello. This play is about that journey. Debra wrote and performed this solo show.

Othello is a noble Moorish general whose life is destroyed by his ensign, Lago, who manipulates him into believing his wife, Desdemona, is unfaithful. Consumed by jealous rage, Othello murders Desdemona, only to learn of Iago’s deception. Consumed with grief Othello then commits suicide.

With such a dark story line, my portrait poster lacked any discernible action. I liked the classy serif typeface I had picked for the title but that might miss the mark as well for such a bold dark story line. This poser image left me feeling uneasy. I think it has to do with her smile on one side and serious neutral expression on the other. Perhaps a neutral expression across the board would have worked better but now is not the time for second guessing since this concept was not approved. The challenge was in making the two sides of the portrait the same yet dissimilar. It was a fine line to walk.

Since a verb would be needed, my mind turned to the moment of murderous rage in the play. That moment would end two lives in a pointless tragedy. If that moment could be captured then that would catch a viewer’s attention.

Venus in Fur: Second Pass

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For my second pass at the Venus in Fur poster, I decided to focus on the tight shiny leather glove as the dominatrix raised a finger to her lips to insist on silence. I imagined her saying Shhhh. I was thinking of a woman who might say, “Hey, I’m up here.” Meaning the guy is not looking where he should. Anyway, she is scolding the director.

I also did not know who would be cast as Vanda. I just needed to see her lips, so I avoided painting her nose on upwards. I case Vanda with flowing blonde hair and bright red lipstick. Most people would be looking at the outline of her tight black lace bra and her cleavage. That hidden valley punctuated by a small black bow was the star of the poster.

When John Singer Sargent painted a bare shoulder in his 1884 portrait, of Madame X, there was a major uproar in the Paris Salon. It was considered indecent, immoral, and a “slap in the face” to Parisian social standards. I had done a life sized copy of that Madam X painting for a New York City theater stage production so that painting was certainly on my mind.

In this poster I had one shoulder covered in rich black fur and the other was bare with the necessary strap to hold the black lace bra in place. Were that strap to slip, and it is dangerously close to doing so, then gravity would cause a wardrobe malfunction. I made sure to keep the bra strap in place so as not to upset Orlando High Society.

Anyway this concept hit the mark for a play about domination and masochism. I had darkened the flesh of the face so it receded into the darkness a bit, but the chest was painted a bright pasty white. I know that a viewer’s gaze will go to the brightest highlights and in this case that has to be the breasts.

In the approval meeting there was some discussion and concern because no one knew who might be cast as Vanda. At the Shakes any actress could get the part in the auditions. She could be any nationality or skin color. They were not looking specifically for a fair skinned blonde. She might be brunette. I had to show the actress and certainly I had to show plenty of flesh. It seemed like an impossible catch 22 conundrum. I needed to give it thought back at the studio and find some solution. I wasn’t sure a solution existed and I felt that this version of the poster was hitting the mark. I might have to paint the tools of the trade, like whips and other leather goods but I liked this in-your-face sexuality. Just don’t look her in the eyes. The flesh in this painting still needed some loving touches but I left it as it is to embrace change.

3 Little Pigs First Pass

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The first pass at The 3 Little Pigs poster for the Orlando Shakes kept with my usual approach of depicting the characters with realism. I only put one pig in the courtroom at the time. So what happened to the two other pigs? Chances are that they had already been devoured. The one pig remaining would be the one with the brick house.I like little baby pig ears, they are large and look like they belong on bats.

The wolf looked like your average wolf in a green pinstriped suit. Notes I received helped immensely to push the poster in a fun direction. I was advised to look at The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and look a the Grinch’s sneer. He had an amazing sneer that would curl infinitely. Chuck Jones is the director of that film and he has an amazing knack to draw characters with appeal and tons of emotion. In the shorts he directed he would personally draw many of the key poses of the characters to get the animators started. He knew exactly what he wanted.

I would of course need two more pigs and they should also not be as realistic. They needed to be angry or scared depending on their character. In the Disney animated short each of the pigs had a definite personality. That film came before Snow white and the 7 Dwarfs and I believe the level of thought that went into giving each pig a personality late translated into the clear personalities given to each dwarf.

The type face I had picked for the title was also rather plain and not very playful. That would also require some major rethinking. There was a whole lot of type that needed to go on this poster with all the credits and the tag line, so the vertical image would be more like a square image after the type was in place. I figured I should embrace that and add bars of color to isolate the text from the courtroom scene.

I incorporated a red jury box and red witness stand. They have subtly different wood treatments. I don’t know if any one seeing the poster would notice that. I would keep many elements like the pointing fingers, the green suit and jury box but everything else needed a facelift to make it more playful. The wolf had literally no expression other than hunger I suppose. He needed a dose of anthropomorphism.

I still didn’t want a flat 2d animation look. I needed a mix of playful expressiveness and realism. This pass had far to much of the latter. Back to the drawing board, or in this case, iPad.

The Comedy of Errors Final Poster

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The final version of the Comedy of Errors poster for the Orlando Shakes mostly addressed subtle changes to the upper half of the poster. A catch phrase was added which I incorporated in a flowing scroll below the new title treatment.

The woman with the gossamer wings was moved down into the parade crowd. She replaced one of the twin brothers and I added a few more costumed revelers in the parade. In the night sky I added warm glowing embers that could be interpreted as stars of the flaming embers of an exploded firework falling to the ground.  Many of my poster images incorporate some glowing elements. Once some magical light effect is in the scene I start to feel satisfied.

Most of the parade remained unchanged, I just kept working on subtle details while keeping some spontaneity. There was some talk of adding the waterfront at the end of the street, but that would have pulled visual interest away from the parade. I kept the grey city buildings at the end of the street to cut off any further depth to the scene.

The new type treatment was very similar to the type I was seeing on many Mardi Gras posters and flyers. I like how William Shakespear’s name fit below errors with the E and S book ending his name. This was a fun poster to pull together. I didn’t have a chance to sketch the production of the show. I would have liked to see this marriage of Shakespeare’s play and Mardi Gras. It must have been a fun show that would have been magnificent to sketch.

This production was in 2023. It feels like I worked on the poster yesterday. I have been updating the portfolio on this website, so I am going through all the past work I have done to populate different categories on the website. I have been adding artwork to the Theater Posters category and discovered I never wrote about these posters at the time. When I find that I didn’t discuss the process at the time, I am going in and doing it today so I can add the art to the portfolio.

Comedy of Errors First Pass

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In designing the 2023 Orlando Shakes poster for Comedy of Errors, I started with a kaleidoscopic idea that featured two sets of twins. In the Shakespeare comedy identities get mixes as two sets of twins fall in love. It is a comedy that stresses how ephemeral love is and how blind. I was looking a tons of reference from Mardi Gras since the Shakespeare play was to be staged in New Orleans. My idea involved perfect symmetry which is something digital painting is quite good at. In the background I placed abstractions from intricate Mardi Gras parade floats. The only thing that broke the symmetry were the two men in the background both holding yellow umbrellas. The title treatment was kept bold with offset lettering to imply comedy.

This was just one of the ideas pitched for the poster. Ultimately everyone leaned towards a street parade scene since it had more action and a large cast of characters. Purple and yellow became the complimentary colors that dominated all of my initial concept sketches. I was doing concept sketches at full size. I honestly feel it is just as easy to paint a concept rather than to do a pencil sketch which  can be harder to interpret. I like throwing line and color at the page right from the start. I know everything can change and likely will so the stakes are not high.

I just gave a quick presentation for the Orlando board that showed the process behind 10 of the theater posters. I realize now that should be a sub category in my portfolio. Some people probably think that one image is created and accepted but the process if far more collaborative allowing an idea to evolve and grow just as any stage production evolves with many rehearsals. My first pass at a poster is seldom the one that will get accepted. My first pass is just a sloppy attempt to catch the fish. Once the fist is caught, then the more interesting and intricate ideas can work their way into the process.