Designing poster art for the New York Theatre is a wonderful challenge. Every show is different. Whether it is for Broadway or Off-Broadway, the creative process is the same, although the budgets may vary. Some shows are star vehicles, or have famous playwrights or composers as the centerpiece or, a bigger challenge, have no bold face names attached to them at all. My job is to create a poster that exemplifies the show, be it musical or drama, with an arresting image that will cause anyone looking at it to say, “I’d like to see that” or “I’d like to learn more about that show”. While looking through my work, you’ll get a glimpse of the back stage story behind each poster as well.
Unlike many other commercial design forms, the Theatre Poster is considered, by most, to be art. Here, then, is my art.
I’ve selected about 100 of my favorites. Enjoy. I certainly enjoyed creating them!
Follies (Broadway)
The Lion King
Sweeney Todd
Sunday in the Park With George
Our Town
Getting Away With Murder
Cymbeline
Oklahoma!
Three Sisters
Looped
The Sun Also Rises
Merrily We Roll Along
Pal Joey
The Pitmen Painters
Proof
Play Dead
The Realistic Joneses
A Doctor in Spite of Himself
Food & Fadwa
Dracula
Deathtrap
Journey’s End
Twelve Angry Men
Forbidden Broadway – Rude Awakening
Sondheim Celebration
Jekyll & Hyde
Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap
My One and Only
Follies (Sondheim)
The Horse
Morning’s at Seven
Mame
Candide
The Frogs
Adding Machine
A Little Night Music
Little Women
Mistakes Were Made
The Kathy & Mo Show
Company
Prymate
Baby
Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood
Pacific Overtures
All My Sons
Beirut
Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit
Twentieth Century
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Passion
The Story of My Life
Cheaters
Theatre Museum
Follies (Kennedy Center)
Hot Feet
Spoils of War
American Buffalo
Sunday in the Park with George
‘Master Harold’…and the boys
The Lady and the Clarinet
Roza
Michael Feinstein Piano and Voice
Night of the Iguana
Freud’s Last Session
Belleville
Waiting in the Wings
The Merchant
Restoration
In Trousers
The Three Penny Opera
I Ought To Be In Pictures
Pipe Dream
Electra
Sweeney Todd
Valhalla
Beyond Therapy
The Odyssey
The Night of the Iguana
Death and the Maiden
Merrily We Roll Along
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Cinderella R&H Songbook
South Pacific R&H Songbook
The Glass Menagerie
Travesties
Imaginary Friends
The Scarlett Pimpernel
Primo
On the 20th Century
Otherwise Engaged
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
As Is
Dust
Total Adandon
A Perfect Future
Sondheim & Co
The Young Man From Atlanta
Fran’s Bed
Cakewalk
Fortune’s Fool
The Unexpected Man
David Copperfield Dreams & Nightmares
Festen
The Sound of Music
Tennesee Williams Explored – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Tennessee Williams Explored – A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams Explored – The Glass Menagerie
Shakespeare’s R&J
Showstoppers!
An Illiad
Pacific Overtures
Mrs. Klein
Valley of the Dolls
The Effect of Gamma Rays
Master Harold
Good Goods
A Doll’s Life
Burn This
Forbidden Broadway: The Roast of Utopia
Vigil
Zanna Don’t!
Dead Man’s Cell Phone
Into the Woods, Jr.
Tony Awards
The Winter’s Tale