Just last week, I had the privilege of taking publicity/archive photos for Sunset Playhouse's production of "Lucky Stiff." The writers of this musical comedy went on to write the multi-Tony award winning musical "Ragtime" in 1998. It's a fun show about a shoe salesman who stands to inherit $6 million dollars from his long-lost uncle if he takes his corpse on a whirlwind tour of his favorite city, Monte Carlo. If he fails to do everything his uncle provised in his will, the money goes to the Brooklyn Home for Dogs.
The challenge with photographing this musical at Sunset Playhouse (which is located in Elm Gove, Wisconsin), is that the set was not finished. In the scenic designer's defense, it was an ambitious undertaking complete with a fountain, a multi-leveled hotel set, and the most beautiful three-sided flats I have ever seen. The solution was found in knowing Photoshop.
I work with Photoshop Elements 11 which is basically all I need to create the photos I want to use for my projects. The main problem with the set was that they were using PVC pipes to make the fountain which had printing on them and had not been painted yet. I thought about using the blur filter to correct the problem, but, when I did, the effect was too obvious. So instead, I decided to clone stamp the parts of the pipes that did not have printing on them onto the parts that did. What happened was the printing on the pipes did not disappear completely, but the cloning did create a marbling effect, which was good enough.
The show runs for two more weekends, through May 12. For tickets, you can go to Sunset Playhouse's website at http://www.sunsetplayhouse.com.
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