Posted by on Jan 29, 2011 | Comments Off

So what goes on behind the scenes of a theatre production?

One of our jobs as photojournalists is to take the reader or viewer to places he can’t go. We are, in a way, the eyes of our readers. To that end, I’ve been privileged to take our readers to many places in central Washington.

This week, I’m showing how the backstage (although they prefer the term “technical”) crew works to put on a production at our local theatre in Yakima.

In less than 12 houirs the local crew, with the help of a handful of touring crew stage crew members, transformed an empty stage to a scene from 1950s for the show “Grease.”

A couple of photos from the day:

Sara Flowers steams actresses' costumes backstage at the Capitol Theatre the afternoon of Jan. 4, 2011 as preparations are made to stage "Grease" that evening. It's love of the theatre that keeps Flowers returning to work back stage on Capitol productions. She has worked on technical crews for four years. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

As a member of the wardrobe crew, Matt Fouts polishes cast members' shoes before "Grease." "I volunteered for it. I'm part of the wardrobe team and it's one of the jobs that needed doing," says Fouts. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

Read the story and see a photo gallery. There’s an audio slideshow as well.

This story along with the photos and audio slide is my contribution to the monthly feature story that generated by a photographer. As often as not, the photographer writes the story in addition to producing photos and multimedia. Each time I write a story I’m reminded how difficult it is to write a compelling or, at the very least, interesting story.

–Gordon King