There’s No People Like Show People
In a new book, the Broadway photographer Jenny Anderson captures the craft and camaraderie of making theater.When Jenny Anderson was 7, her mother was cast in a local production of “Annie” in Brookhaven, Miss., near their hometown; Anderson, who had auditioned to be an orphan, was not. But sitting backstage watching her mom rehearse, she discovered a kind of “magic.” Where an actor’s job is to be seen, Anderson, even at 7, loved to look — not just at the razzle-dazzle happening onstage but at the alchemy that happened beyond it, transforming 1990s suburban kids into Depression-era orphans and a Mississippi theater into the streets of New York City.Anderson eventually made her way to New York, where she built a career as a theater photographer. THE IN-BETWEEN (Applause, $45), her first book, collects 16 years of her work behind the Broadway stage. The volume is a celebration of the labor and love that go into making theater — the trial and error of the rehearsal room; the transformative process of layering on costumes, makeup and wigs; the back-alley cigarettes and stairwell quick changes; the frenzied laughter, reflective calm and tears that all pour into a performance, and that turn a bunch of strangers into a momentary family.Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara in 2023, dressed to go on as a couple battling alcoholism in the musical “Days of Wine and Roses.”Jenny AndersonSarah Paulson warms up backstage at “Appropriate” in 2024.Jenny AndersonThough not a performer, Anderson is undeniably a member of that club called show people, and she suffuses each of her photographs with a palpable tenderness. Devotees of Broadway will find many familiar faces here; in the span of a few pages, you can trace Caissie Levy or Gavin Creel from baby-faced hippies in the 2010 “Hair” tribe to confident veterans leading the casts of “Frozen” (2019) and “Into the Woods” (2022). This is a book, in many ways, about becoming: a twisted mother, an underdog boxer, the goddess of the underworld, a bona fide Broadway star.Caissie Levy, Gavin Creel and Will Swenson rehearsing for “Hair” in 2010.Jenny AndersonLevy starring as Elsa in “Frozen” in 2019.Jenny AndersonAndy Karl prepares for his role as the titular boxer in the 2014 musical “Rocky.”Jenny AndersonThey say magicians should never reveal their secrets. But in exposing the inner workings of so many showstopping performances, Anderson pulls us all under the theater’s spell — holding our breaths as we race toward that moment when the room is hushed and everything is possible, just before the curtain goes up.Shaina Taub — the writer, composer and star of “Suffs” — at the 2024 Tony Awards, where she took home the prizes for best book and best original score.Jenny AndersonAmber Gray pauses before performing a number from “Hadestown” at the 2019 Tony Awards.Jenny AndersonCherry Jones and Celia Keenan-Bolger share a lighthearted moment backstage at “The Glass Menagerie” in 2013.Jenny AndersonLeslie Odom Jr. takes a moment for reflection before a 2023 performance of “Purlie Victorious.”Jenny Anderson More
