Erickson performing arts photo show opens at Atticus Monday

Atticus Cafe
1082 Chapel St., New Haven, (203) 776-4040
T. Charles Erickson: Performing Arts Photography in CT, 1978-2008
Through Oct. 4, 2008
Opening Reception: Mon., Sept. 15, 6-8 p.m.

Press release

According to T. Charles Erickson (Web):

This show at Atticus Cafe is prompted by two anniversaries.

It has been thirty years since I photographed Bob Marley and the Wailers at the now defunct Pinecrest Country Club in Shelton, just twenty minutes from where you are standing. It was an amazingly exciting evening for me; Bob Marley was, without doubt, the single most charismatic performer I've seen in my lifetime (and I saw Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock!). I was so near to him that I had to back away because my telephoto lens would not focus that closely! I peered through the lens, mesmerized, for the first hour until it dawned on me that I was not really hearing the music because the visuals were that enthralling, so I put away the camera until the encore and skanked with the crowd! This is the first time these photos have been exhibited.

The second anniversary is even more important to me.

In 1984 I was hired by New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre to photograph my first show for a nationally known producing regional theatre. That show was "Tobacco Road" and it was brilliantly designed and cast; my photos looked like Depression era Farm Security Administration pictures from the 1930's, and that was the beginning of a long relationship with the theatre. It is with great pride and gratitude that I celebrate my twenty-fifth consecutive season as the Long Wharf's photographer. Their support for my work launched a career as a theatre photographer which has taken me to most of the corners of this country to record, and interpret in two dimensions, many of the most significant productions mounted by the nation's very best theatres. In the process I have built one of the largest archives of theatre photography by any living photographer. Last season I was privileged to work for seventeen theatre clients around the country, but it is the Connecticut theatre community to which I owe my most profound gratitude and sense of the great luck I have had by starting in this vibrant epicenter.

Here is a retrospective, representative of the sheer variety and importance of Connecticut's performing arts, encompassing photos captured on film and with digital cameras over the last thirty years. Enjoy them, and support live theatre!